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Why Enterprise Software Sucks

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Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#181

Post by java-man »

ramraj07 wrote: post #150
java-man wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this with mobile phones in the 90's-2000's. Until Apple came up with the iPhone designed for the end users, the phones' buyers were the networks, not the end users. The same goes for companies like LinkedIn - they are now driven by recruiters and not the end users. Thus the idiotic interface and functionality changes that basically makes it unusable [to the most of the users].

Not sure I agree. There was a lot of innovation on smartphones before the iPhone, they were just not as visionary as the iPhone was. Look up the Nokia N-Gage as an example

What an awful design it was!

As much as I loved simpler Nokia handsets, N-Gage is not what I would consider an innovation.

A personal opinion, of course.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#182

Post by waynecochran »

Reminds me of my latest experience with the enterprise video conferencing software that will remain nameless.

One very important thing is knowing that your mic is muted. The button for muting the mic has an icon of a mic with a slash thru it (which in other software would mean your mic is off/muted). No. Not with this wonderful piece of enterprise software. I found out by yelling across the house at one of my kids while I was in a conference call with about 100 folks all over the world. It is the color of the button that tells you whether the mic is muted (aside: I am color blind). Later, after reading the online docs this is what I determined about the color of the button:

     * blackish => not being used (?)
     * red => used but currently muted
     * blue => used and on
     * clear => someone else muted you!
If you have to read docs to figure this out then the software is already a failure. Also having a slash thru the mic should definitely imply the mic is off if they did any usability testing!

Also, the mic is on by default! Also, I noticed my video camera was on as well by seeing the little orange light at the top of the screen!!

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#183

Post by Spooky23 »

corebit wrote: post #171
Spooky23 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. They also control the workflow. If you don't like the 15 steps it takes to update your expense report, good for you, you won't get paid. Companies will lose deals unless they do what customers want. Eventually, that chunks up the software and makes it awful. That's just the nature of the beast, and it's no different than things were pre-computer. I had a .gov customer that had a very specific ruleset about s…

This story needs a write up! I'm fascinated!

Someday I’ll write a book or something. There’s a deep well of crazy stories like this that I’ve run into!

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#184

Post by earthboundkid »

wolco wrote: post #162
tomatocracy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Excel really is a good product. But there are a few things people do consistently complain about with it in my experience: - lack of forwards compatibility. When someone sends you an Excel 2016 file and you’re stuck on Excel 2013 because your corporate hasn’t upgraded yet, it’s a total PITA. - weird bugs. Sometimes spreadsheets can get corrupted in weird ways so that they crash Excel and there’s nothing you can…

You want an older version to support all new features. That's not possible unless you just change the ui on each version.

If you're going to break compatibility, at least fucking fix the dates.

http://www.lexicon.net/sjmachin/xlrd.html

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#185

Post by rrdharan »

sambeau wrote: post #153
freddie_mercury wrote: post #20

I think this gets it wrong. The real reason enterprise software sucks is that enterprises have complex and unique workflows and would prefer to buy software that they can fit to their workflow rather than change the workflows of their profitable business with tens of thousands of staff who will need retraining. If you look at all of the most successful software of all time they are the complete antithesis of the Unix…

Companies like Basecamp and Trello are here to prove that assertion wrong. Basecamp is in every fortune-500 company more than once and never officially. Why? Because you don't need IT to approve it first and it's price is just under what most managers can stick on their company credit card. One of Basecamp's mottos is "Do Less". It's also worth pointing out that the simpler the software, the more likely it is to fit…

You actually do probably need your IT department to approve your use of Basecamp and Trello. It's very easy for project management and tracking tools to accommodate sensitive information like pending deals, new launches, or even PII. Your IT department probably isn't happy about rogue usage of external/third-party tools for storing data that they haven't properly tracked and can't wipeout or revoke if you quit.

Whether or not you choose to respect those needs, they very much still exist for all larger publicly traded companies.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#186

Post by kragen »

investinme wrote: post #167
kragen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim does not use the Unix philosophy. It is an Amiga program ported to Unix, designed along the lines of Emacs, which also does not use the Unix philosophy. You would think he would have noticed that his text editor was a domain where he wasn't applying the superior Unix philosophy. I'm not convinced that the Unix philosophy doesn't apply to image and video editing, but certainly we haven't seen an example (aside fro…

I was talking more about the GUI/command line divide. SolidWorks/Blender are fundamentally GUI apps, even if they do contain some programmatic features (like parametric filters/models/...). Also, all media software have something like "Unix tools who do one thing well" - plugins, filters, ..., but you compose them using the GUI.

It sounds like you're being confused by the surface appearance of things, rather than paying attention to their fundamental nature. Maybe that's why you weren't able to understand the arrogant Vim guy's utterance and wrote him off as delusional instead of figuring out in what sense he might be saying something true. It's good that you did figure it out eventually even if you couldn't hear it from him.

Unix wasn't distinguished from other contemporary systems by not using a GUI. With a few visionary exceptions like NLS/Augment, SKETCHPAD, Spacewar!, and GENESYS, computers didn't have GUIs when Unix was born. The Unix philosophy wasn't about using textual commands. Every computer used textual commands except desk calculators. It was about a uniform interface that permits unrestricted composition of orthogonal software components, easy and expressive automation of routine tasks, and prioritizing usability over absolute computational efficiency. These are not, to put it mildly, Photoshop’s strong points.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#187

Post by rrdharan »

rrdharan wrote: post #185
sambeau wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies like Basecamp and Trello are here to prove that assertion wrong. Basecamp is in every fortune-500 company more than once and never officially. Why? Because you don't need IT to approve it first and it's price is just under what most managers can stick on their company credit card. One of Basecamp's mottos is "Do Less". It's also worth pointing out that the simpler the software, the more likely it is to fit…

You actually do probably need your IT department to approve your use of Basecamp and Trello. It's very easy for project management and tracking tools to accommodate sensitive information like pending deals, new launches, or even PII. Your IT department probably isn't happy about rogue usage of external/third-party tools for storing data that they haven't properly tracked and can't wipeout or revoke if you quit. Wheth…

I should say, those needs exist for all companies, it's just that the larger publicly traded ones have more to lose from e.g. a GDPR violation, data exfiltration/compromise or accidental leak of financially impactful data.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#188

Post by Goladus »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #169
bhauer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same reaction. I was wondering, "Since when are Word, Excel, and Photoshop enterprise software?" I've been using these as consumer desktop software for decades. That said, I do agree with GP that enterprise software is complex because it's designed to be adaptable to existing processes, whereas simpler software seeks to adapt the user to its prescribed process. And even without being an enterprise, I often…

> Since when are Word, Excel [...] enterprise software? Since Word 1.0. Why do you think it is called Microsoft Office ? The 1989 edition of Microsoft Word cost $500, equivalent to over $1,000 today, for a single seat. That's not consumer software. Microsoft Home didn't exist until 1993, a decade into Office's life, when it had achieved complete enterprise dominance -- thanks largely to its competitors' failure to re…

When people say "Enterprise Software" they are not talking about shrink-wrap single-user office productivity applications like word processors and spreadsheets.

Maybe there should be another term to help clarify for people who don't understand the difference, but the difference really should be obvious from context.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#189

Post by afarrell »

nradov wrote: post #154
Juliate wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That enterprise software may very well be the best software that includes all those needed features. How come you can't have something nice & even decently working for: pay, HR, vacation, expenses tracking? Or more, how is it possible that obviously unfit and malfunctioning solutions (for problems that have been known, solved and specified for years) are still on the market in 2019 in companies that pretend to be s…

Pay, HR, and expense tracking are extremely complex areas due to federal / state / local labor laws, collective bargaining agreements, and individual organizational policies. Any application which deals with all those complexities will inevitably be full of defects and usability problems. There is no solution, it's simply reality.

Do the users of the software need to know about all that complexity?

If the answer is: "they definitely do", then you are right. There's no way around it.

If the answer is: "No, they only need to know about 4% of it. The rest can be automated and hidden away." then the problem is that people aren't incentivised to pay the cost of building that software.

There is a broad solution:

Hire engineers, UX designers, and product managers to spend time to solve those problems and to manage that complexity. The problem is that this requires the time and effort of skilled people and that requires a sustained commitment of money. So that requires someone with decision-making power to allocate money from a budget of limited resources.

If the additional UI improvement helps win sufficient revenue, then its worth it. But if the additional UI improvement doesn't persuade decision-makers or only helps 1 client account, then it is not.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#190

Post by shadowgovt »

Goladus wrote: post #175
ridaj wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this does completely get it right. Enterprises thought they needed all the control and security features of Blackberry until the iPhone came along and made the UX gap unsustainable. Enterprises thought they needed on-premise hosting of Exchange, Office and SharePoint instances under their control for email and productivity, until GSuite came up with a better, less configurable user experience based on consumer fe…

Exactly right, even to the point of bringing up a few specific industries that do in fact have specialized needs.

But when the enterprise software authors want to capture 100% of the marketplace, they are, of course, writing their offering to support those few specific industries.

... which adds features to the product as a whole, which other customers will need to be aware of and might take advantage of.

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