Nine Tech Bosses Say What They Would Never Buy Again

SplashTech asked people who run shipping technology companies a simple question: what would you never buy again? The answers are short, honest and more useful than most product launches.

The regrets, in plain words. Aristos Philis of KeelX: software that makes staff type in data that already exists somewhere else. The screen is digital, the work is still manual. His test is one question: what work does this remove? Tore-Morten Olsen of Marlink: products that stand alone and cannot share data or show a result. Sven Brooks of ScanReach: single-purpose software locked into its own format, so leaving it means a costly migration. Casper Jensen of GTT Marine: forcing a mixed fleet into one maker's system. Nico Lehtinen of Elomatic: standard software customised so heavily that every upgrade hurts. Antonis Malaxianakis of HarborLab: cloud services billed by use, because the bill keeps growing. He says he would bring the core servers in-house, though his own company works differently today. Jacob Iversen of Weathernews: AI that cannot explain its advice, because then nobody can learn from it or improve it.

Two answers stand apart. Damien Bertin of Opsealog said nothing, because he would rather build on experience than regret it. And Philippe Lavarde of Closelink said he would never again buy junior developers, with no explanation. That one we would argue with. Two weeks ago we asked who trains the juniors when everyone has the same tools. A company that stops hiring juniors is a company that stops making seniors.

Read it with one eye open. Every person here sells software. Each regret is, in part, a description of a competitor's product. That does not make them wrong. It makes them predictable.

Turn it into questions for your next purchase. Show me what work this removes, not what screen it adds. Can I take all my data out, in a format another supplier can read, and what does that cost? How does the bill grow when we use it more? Can your AI tell my officer why it recommends what it recommends? If a supplier cannot answer those four, you already know what you will regret. [Splash247 · AiatSea, 4 October]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 18 October 2026.