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Why Enterprise Software Sucks

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Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#361

Post by edubs25 »

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)

define small?

My partner worked here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LafargeHolcim

They used gsuite for email, o365 for other aspects. Required iPhones if you wanted a device - wouldnt allow android at the time... but that may have changed since

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#362

Post by cjfd »

cjfd wrote: post #357
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 these tweets get it exactly right. A problem is software that gets sold on golf courses without any regard the people who are actually going to use it.

Also, since you name jira. Try doing a so-called 'bulk change' in jira for, let us say, three stories, and marvel at the needless sequence of screens one is guided though. It has nothing to do with any necessary complexity. It is just bull$hit software being sold at golf courses.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#364

Post by MarcScott »

I worked at a school that used the Frog VLE.

There was a big push for us to use it for student assessment.

I tried, I honestly did.

1. I used it to set homework assignments.

2. .py files were blocked and students couldn't upload them.

3. They submitted code as .txt instead.

4. I'd click on my class to view submissions, it showed the top 5 submissions.

5. I'd click on a submission and it would download.

6. I'd view the submission locally.

7. I'd convert to .py to test the code worked.

8. I'd assign a grade.

9. I'd then have to click (maybe 5 - 10 times) through to a different page to record the grade.

10. I'd then have to go back to the submissions page.

11. After grading the first 5 submissions, I'd click through to the next page.

12. After grading the 6th submission, I would be returned to the first submission page and have to click forward again.

13. When you get to the 30th submission, you're maybe doing fifty clicks for each homework assignment.

14. I had 4 classes all doing the same assignment.

15. This could not be amalgamated into a single marking spree.

I spent weeks trying to grade my students and then just gave up and had them email me their assignments from that point on.

These platforms are all full of features; commissioned, designed, tested and developed by people who have never set foot in a classroom.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#365

Post by lliamander »

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…

> If you look at all of the most successful software of all time they are the complete antithesis of the Unix philosophy that so many designers and developers prefer. Word, Excel, SAP, Photoshop, Salesforce, JIRA.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that Unix itself is also incredibly successful (both in a commercial and mindshare perspective) the items in that list are not necessarily commensurate.

Yes, they all have lots of features, but Excel and Photoshop were definitely built for their users, whereas SAP was not so much. As a consequence, Excel and Photoshop have very enthusiastic user communities, and SAP (et. al) users gripe a lot.

My thesis is that Excel and Photoshop were built around empowering the workflows of individual users. As such, it becomes possible to market directly to the users, even if someone else ends up writing the check.

Products like JIRA, Salesforce, and SAP are intended to optimize the flow of an organization. There's no single user you sell the software to that will benefit from using the software independent of what other people are using.

Also, the Unix philosophy isn't about limited functionality - it's about achieving rich functionality by having orthogonal bits of functionality that can be composed together in new and unexpected ways that can be reasoned about.

Programs/applications within Unix may be simple and single purpose, but Unix itself is not. Likewise, we may look at Excel as an application and deem it to be overly complex. However, as a platform Excel is fantastic in that it has lots of independent pieces of functionality that can be easily combined together.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#366

Post by setr »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #269
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…

There's a similarly apocryphal story about cutting the ends of ham off. https://sixsigmadsi.com/grandmas-ham-a-story-of-cultural-tra...

the other half of this is Chesterton's fence; don't go removing policies solely because their history was forgotten

perhaps the ends were being cut off because they often rotted near-invisibly faster, and now you've gone and poisoned the whole family :-)

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#367

Post by dividido »

I write enterprise software for fortune 100 companies. If I put myself in the user’s shoes and had an alternative, I’d most likely uninstall what we built and jump ship. But they can’t. It’s an internal app and the user is forced to use it. I try and fight for what’s right but if I had a dollar everytime I heard “ we aren’t google/amazon” , “only xx people will use it”, “we are just doing this to get off the old tech stack and need a 1:1 rewrite”.

Big ships turn slowly and change is difficult. UX isn’t valued. Agile is really waterfall and when a big is found it’s always a critical showstopper. Enterprise is a different beast altogether.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#368

Post by basch »

TheOtherDave wrote: post #275
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…

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

It doesnt have to be though, its also a great whiteboard for brainstorming and mindmapping. It works for things besides numbers and functions.

Sure people could use notepad, onenote, powerpoint, other proprietary software, but they are comfortable in the grid like ridgularity of excel.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#369

Post by btbuildem »

vfc1 wrote: post #9

Pretty true. For example, some of the worst applications I have ever used are by far timesheet applications. It's a product with a completely captive audience, that cannot go to the competition. If you don't fill your timesheet, you don't get paid its that simple. Typically these are either built-in house, or are an expensive third party product with terrible usability, bought by managers who might not even have to u…

Yeah, ours is hot garbage as well. I ended up writing a script that spoofed the client and talked directly to the backend -- luckily my timesheets are simple, same thing every week.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#370

Post by drawkbox »

> "Software companies can be breathtakingly clueless when there's a layer of indirection between them and their users."

Any product where the users or consumers of the service are not the target market is horrible and becomes misguided on pricing and functionality.

Enterprise software is surely caught up in this mess of usability not tuned to their actual customers that have to use it. There is some abstracted target customer above the actual users that clouds the usefulness and utility of the product.

You might say in the US that we have enterprise healthcare, the target market should be consumers and doctors, but the insurance companies target customer is employers and their own bottom line.

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