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Why Enterprise Software Sucks

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Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#271

Post by ridaj »

bryanmgreen wrote: post #245
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…

As someone who is building a B2B SAAS company and made the decision to not focus on large-enterprise, I think you're both right. At the end of the day, it's just plain hard to create a clean effective product that can be used by 5,000+ person organizations. Regardless of use-case, boatloads of data will be collected in large-enterprise software and it has to be transferred and presented to many end-users in a clear w…

This gets closer to the underlying truth. Even if you had smart procurement people who understood the benefits of great UX, another issue would be that enterprise problems are typically sub-scale compared with today's consumer products. There is one or two orders of magnitude more complexity and one or two orders of magnitude less users than in the consumer space, or even less for niche industry needs.

Even if you make it up with additional willingness to pay per user, the market isn't always there for spending a lot to design, develop and iterate on the perfect UX.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#272

Post by cwyers »

ridaj wrote: post #152
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…

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…

The iPhone, via the App Store, and Slack, via the extension marketplace and APIs, are _incredibly_ configurable. Mindboggling so.

(And many companies are using MDM along with the iPhone, so it's not like they don't think they need control there.)

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#273

Post by kragen »

untog wrote: post #96
kragen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> big data workflow involves loading millions and millions of records Dude, if it fits on your laptop disk, it's not big data. Here you're talking about “big data” that fits in RAM on my cellphone . Somebody needs to get over himself.

But if Google Sheets can't fit the data they are using, it is by definition "big data", even if it's not Big Data. I think this over-protectiveness of the definition doesn't really serve anyone.

In four lines you manage to be arrogant, insulting, patronizing, and intellectually sloppy (“by definition”?) I'm disappointed. I'd like to invite you to produce a higher level of discourse.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#274

Post by chasd00 »

asjw wrote: post #251
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…

No serious enterprise uses gsuite , it's a small businesses tool. iPhones and smartphones in general have greatly increased the risk of data theft or being spied. Insurance companies are more than happy that others have switched to smartphones (I worked in insurance consulting for cyber risks)

iirc Salesforce uses gsuite internally

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#275

Post by TheOtherDave »

mfer wrote: post #197
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…

Enterprise software is a sub-class of business software. Enterprises often operate quite differently from SMBs. Public US companies will have things like SOX compliance. And, the enterprises offering up services, like email, may be competitors in another space. If you are competing with Google on phones do you want them to host your email? Likely not. The business world is complex. Some complex business software is f…

Excel is programming, it just doesn’t call itself that so people won’t get scared off.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#276

Post by Qwertystop »

shadowgovt wrote: post #263
Macha wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The compelling feature of gsuite for my employer was apparently the ability to turn off IMAP etc and therefore rule out emails being kept locally/beyond the retention period for better access control/cheaper legal compliance, not anything UX related.

That's... Kind of hilarious. I'm assuming your employer has never heard of printers or copy-paste. ;)

Or forwarding, or clicking "archive" instead of "delete", or screenshots...

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#277

Post by prepend »

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…

Enterprises think they need and exert more control than they need. I think companies perform better with less rigid “do it this way because.”

It’s fascinating how enterprise staff follow processes they don’t understand to get an outcome and don’t know why. I can frequently get better service than my IT staff from free tier consumer stuff.

I hear “security” blah blah blah but the security on gmail is better than any local outlook install. I think there’s a myth of security.

Whats breaking this is just people ignoring enterprise IT, I think, until someone notices they are spending lots on stuff that people don’t care about.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#278

Post by wpietri »

ocfnash wrote: post #42
mjlee wrote: post #7

I'm not sure where this originates from, but the most succinct definition I've heard for "Enterprise Software" is that the person who pays for it isn't the person who uses it.

If anyone even uses it at all! I have a friend who works in a sales role for IBM. He told me that part of his bonus is contingent on being able to prove that the customer has actually installed the software which they bought. The policy apparently arose because certain public sector entities had refused to consider new deals since they still hadn't got round to installing the software for which they had paid millions…

And I'm sure the problem is now that a lot of places installed it but never used it.

One of the things I like about SaaS software is that a subscription revenue stream is more closely aligned with actually delivering value than a long-term sales model is. It's still not perfect, but I'll take what I can get.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#279

Post by mongol »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #76
mjlee wrote: post #7

I'm not sure where this originates from, but the most succinct definition I've heard for "Enterprise Software" is that the person who pays for it isn't the person who uses it.

The definition I like is: "Enterprise software is the one that once unavailable, the company is unable to run its core business."

That is a good definition.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#280

Post by enra »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #86

With JIRA (and most other enterprise ticketing/scrum sofware) EVERYTHING is possible but nothing is easy ! What I want to buy is NOT 1001 to log/validate/confirm/report a "login form" doesn't work issue. I want to BUY someone's workflow that has invested real time and research and optimised the workflow. The software should only have a supporting minor role in this workflow-product. Its like buy a super-duper-expensi…

We are pretty much building this. We want to optimize the workflows so they actually make sense and recommend best best practices. The main thing we want support is individual's and the team's momentum. If the team has momentum, it's feels good and overall the company will make more progress. Features or anything that get in a way of that should be automated or not added at all.

https://linear.app

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