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Why Enterprise Software Sucks

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Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#291

Post by matchagaucho »

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…

Blackboard's roots were in the NPO/NGO world, which influenced many design and feature decisions that took them in a completely different direction than B2B SaaS.

OP conflating them with enterprise software is not the best premise.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#292

Post by Scoundreller »

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…

> There absolutely are outlier businesses like banking, government, healthcare and other highly regulated fields where they do have critical control needs.

Control needs, yes, but there’s still a massive amount of trust required.

If the software could always prevent you from doing the « wrong » thing, then that task would be automated. Logging every action isn’t the complicated part.

But the bit about workflows is 100% true. No two hospital systems are the same. You can’t buy your Diagnostic Imaging equipment from the same vendor as your registration system, each with their own workflow.

You could probably fingerprint every hospital system based on which different clinical vendors they’ve adopted for their various functions.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#293

Post by untog »

kragen wrote: post #273
untog wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...you can't be serious. This is an incredibly over the top reaction to a very mild reply. Not to mention that telling me you're disappointed in me and inviting me to "produce a higher level of discourse" is far more arrogant and patronising than anything in my original statement.

But anyway, this is very obviously off-topic. I don't think it serves the wider community to continue this conversation so I'll leave it here.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#294

Post by Scoundreller »

shadowgovt wrote: post #267
Justin_K wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another big gotcha that hits large public organizations is that the software must be ADA compliant. This is extremely difficult and expensive to meet. Most small vendors do not meet the minimum requirements or even consider doing so.

I got to be a fly on the wall in an organization meeting where we realized our third-party UI vendor had no roadmap for internationalization. That was an uncomfortable day. ;)

Heh, I know of a major health record software that can’t handle time zones. So the hospital system has its instances sharded that way.

Once you cross a time zone, your records are much harder to access.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#295

Post by chongli »

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. ;)

I don’t think it’s fair to jump to the conclusion that management at the GP’s see their employees as malicious. It’s far more plausible that they just don’t want emails automatically downloaded and stored on everyone’s computers.

Many companies have strict regulations on data retention and they’re regularly audited to ensure compliance. By keeping the data off employee computers, compliance is simplified.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#296

Post by rhinoceraptor »

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…

Shadow IT will always be created when the existing system or IT group can't or won't support the users' needs (imagined or not).

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#297

Post by teddyh »

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."

“If it’s a core business function — do it yourself, no matter what.”

— Joel Spolsky, In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome, 2001: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/14/in-defense-of-not-...

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#299

Post by investinme »

kragen wrote: post #239
investinme wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what I'm attacking, certainly not Vim. I'm just saying that you can perfectly use Vim without a mouse, in fact most guides recommend you to disable mouse (and cursor) support. But you can't use Photoshop or Blender without a mouse. Sure, you technically can, in a limited way, you can for example crop images or apply global filters in PS with just the keyboard, the same in Blender, but certain core manipu…

The best way to use Photoshop without a mouse is to use a Wacom tablet. My Fitts parameter estimates for mouse interaction are terrible, but much better than any keystroke interface I've seen, much less command-line interfaces. You were attacking interactive image editing by typing strings of text: > in command line ImageMagick you say "x=100 y=200". This is not a trivial difference But I don't think anyone really th…

> I wonder if there's a way to describe and interactively refine descriptions of areas of interest in a symbolic way—as Lisp trees if not Unix strings—maybe using existing neural networks. Certainly a speculative idea, of course.

I think the future is more like saying to the computer what you actually want. Like "delete the apple from the picture".

Photoshop already has a primitive form of this particular action, called Content Aware Fill, where you draw a rough selection around an object you want to delete, and it will fill a plausible background in its place. Works pretty well.

https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/photoshop/using/...

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#300

Post by prepend »

Justin_K wrote: post #252
mfer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Another big gotcha that hits large public organizations is that the software must be ADA compliant. This is extremely difficult and expensive to meet. Most small vendors do not meet the minimum requirements or even consider doing so.

Interestingly it is rather straightforward to meet. It is very difficult to prove compliance. Most sites with web front ends should be ada/508 compliant, but documenting it is similar to other paperwork exercises (iso9000) that cost a lot but have little real impact.
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