8 ms·

If your customers are big companies, then there's another dynamic: the people who make decisions about the software are usually not the ones who use it. So a l

If your customers are big companies, then there's another dynamic: the people who make decisions about the software are usually not the ones who use it. So a large part of their decision is driven by how the software is described on paper, i.e. by feature bullet points. You end up with lotus notes. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/feb/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/feb/09/guardianwe...

cordite 11y ago
9000% true. The end users usually just have to deal with it, and go whereever they get jobs.
dredmorbius 11y ago
How does GNOME fit that theory?
- jimbokun 11y ago
  With open source, the software is often developed to meet the needs and priorities of the developers. So if your needs and priorities are similar, it will likely work well for you. Otherwise, maybe not so much.
- creshal 11y ago
  Gnome's development is mainly driven by RedHat's needs nowadays. It shows.
  - et2o 11y ago
    I'm curious, how does it show?
CountSessine 11y ago
Yes; exactly. Silo-ing in large companies where software acquisition, software deployment, and software use are separate functions in the organization is probably the defining influence on 'enterprise software'. This is why so much of it is so bad (sometimes in trivial, easy to change ways), why it's typically so expensive, and why it sometimes so narrowly satisfies stated requirements that it creates whole new problems for the organization. Silo-ing as an organizational principle almost always goes wrong and what you end up with is a stovepipe organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepipe_(organisation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepipe_(organisation)
astockwell 11y ago
This is exactly why so many terrible "features" and design patterns keep showing up in web sites: People calling the shots are not the developers. They "saw this on XYZ's successful site, plz implement today".
- Reedx 11y ago
  Yep. The latest one seems to be newsletter popups that are suddenly infecting the web at large.
  - walterbell 11y ago
    At least newsletters support open-standard email "push" rather than the walled-garden-de-jour, after publishers lost their investments in "followers" to filter algorithms.
  - Donzo 11y ago
    Pop ups are bad in general. IMO, the worst are the full page, content-blocking, app install requests that appear on thin-content sites. It's preposterous. You've proven that you can't be trusted to present your website content in an acceptable manner, and you want me to install your software? Instant back button.
- duderific 11y ago
  Hang on though. The people calling the shots, or at least providing feedback, should be the end users, not the developers. Usually the developers do not use the software they're building. In rare cases, the developers "eat their own dog food" but this is often not the case.
  - astockwell 11y ago
    I absolutely agree when the web site is a tech product/application. I was more taking a stab at major news/media outlets and other "content" sites, whose non-technical "executives" blithely dictate that their devs perpetuate this buffoonery.
pasbesoin 11y ago
IBM's Rational toolset of a decade or a bit more ago, still makes me shudder.
- tumdum_ 11y ago
  We are still using IBM Rational Rhapsody here. It's crude application, but it does what's advertised.
- foo42 11y ago
  I had to use that in my last job (and lotus for that matter). All tooling decisions were made by another part of the org in another country. We had no say. When I quit I gave "poor tooling" as my primary reason in my exit interview.
branchless 11y ago
Lotus notes was just so odd. You'd sit down to open your mail and wonder what year it was. 1972?
malkia 11y ago
For me, the most hated app in the previous company I worked for (Treyarch, part of Activision) was Kronos (kronos.com). It was the "vacation"/time-off/etc. application. Almost all studio was Windows, and you had to use specific browser, with specific Java installed (for some reason our integration/use of it required java in the browser - that was at least year ago). When you open the web-app, sometimes it might not work, when it does it starts with the "bereavement" page (wtf). Then if you want to request vacation that crosses weekends, you have to do it for individual ranges of normal work days. e.g. Also had to be careful not to select work holidays (MLK, 4th July, etc.) That was my use of it... for very short amount of time I was manager to an intern, and had to watch and clock their hours. I had to be trained for 2hr, and still did not get it (I'm a software engineer... duh). But then people claimed it had better new UI, which we did not use (reason unknown), and was pretty powerful.
- auxym 11y ago
  Ha, I work for BigCo, and we use Kronos for timesheets. We recently transitioned to win7 (from XP), and to get Kronos working again we have to run some virtualization app (citrix maybe? can't remember right now, definitely a vmware product though) to run IE8 and some obsolete java version. All for timesheets. Other than that it's pretty useable. At least compared to SAP, which is my only other timesheeting-experience.
- awakeasleep 11y ago
  You'll be sad to know that Kronos continues to make life miserable for employees and managers in businesses around the world.
gaius 11y ago
I've always wanted to visit SAP headquarters in Germany and see how they book their own vacations and submit their own expenses. It can't be with their own software...

cordite 11y ago

9000% true. The end users usually just have to deal with it, and go whereever they get jobs.

dredmorbius 11y ago

How does GNOME fit that theory?

jimbokun 11y ago
With open source, the software is often developed to meet the needs and priorities of the developers. So if your needs and priorities are similar, it will likely work well for you. Otherwise, maybe not so much.
creshal 11y ago
Gnome's development is mainly driven by RedHat's needs nowadays. It shows.
- et2o 11y ago
  I'm curious, how does it show?

CountSessine 11y ago

Yes; exactly. Silo-ing in large companies where software acquisition, software deployment, and software use are separate functions in the organization is probably the defining influence on 'enterprise software'. This is why so much of it is so bad (sometimes in trivial, easy to change ways), why it's typically so expensive, and why it sometimes so narrowly satisfies stated requirements that it creates whole new problems for the organization. Silo-ing as an organizational principle almost always goes wrong and what you end up with is a stovepipe organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepipe_(organisation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepipe_(organisation)

astockwell 11y ago

This is exactly why so many terrible "features" and design patterns keep showing up in web sites: People calling the shots are not the developers. They "saw this on XYZ's successful site, plz implement today".

Reedx 11y ago
Yep. The latest one seems to be newsletter popups that are suddenly infecting the web at large.
- walterbell 11y ago
  At least newsletters support open-standard email "push" rather than the walled-garden-de-jour, after publishers lost their investments in "followers" to filter algorithms.
- Donzo 11y ago
  Pop ups are bad in general. IMO, the worst are the full page, content-blocking, app install requests that appear on thin-content sites. It's preposterous. You've proven that you can't be trusted to present your website content in an acceptable manner, and you want me to install your software? Instant back button.
duderific 11y ago
Hang on though. The people calling the shots, or at least providing feedback, should be the end users, not the developers. Usually the developers do not use the software they're building. In rare cases, the developers "eat their own dog food" but this is often not the case.
- astockwell 11y ago
  I absolutely agree when the web site is a tech product/application. I was more taking a stab at major news/media outlets and other "content" sites, whose non-technical "executives" blithely dictate that their devs perpetuate this buffoonery.

pasbesoin 11y ago

IBM's Rational toolset of a decade or a bit more ago, still makes me shudder.

tumdum_ 11y ago
We are still using IBM Rational Rhapsody here. It's crude application, but it does what's advertised.
foo42 11y ago
I had to use that in my last job (and lotus for that matter). All tooling decisions were made by another part of the org in another country. We had no say. When I quit I gave "poor tooling" as my primary reason in my exit interview.

branchless 11y ago

Lotus notes was just so odd. You'd sit down to open your mail and wonder what year it was. 1972?

malkia 11y ago

For me, the most hated app in the previous company I worked for (Treyarch, part of Activision) was Kronos (kronos.com). It was the "vacation"/time-off/etc. application. Almost all studio was Windows, and you had to use specific browser, with specific Java installed (for some reason our integration/use of it required java in the browser - that was at least year ago). When you open the web-app, sometimes it might not work, when it does it starts with the "bereavement" page (wtf). Then if you want to request vacation that crosses weekends, you have to do it for individual ranges of normal work days. e.g. Also had to be careful not to select work holidays (MLK, 4th July, etc.) That was my use of it... for very short amount of time I was manager to an intern, and had to watch and clock their hours. I had to be trained for 2hr, and still did not get it (I'm a software engineer... duh). But then people claimed it had better new UI, which we did not use (reason unknown), and was pretty powerful.

auxym 11y ago
Ha, I work for BigCo, and we use Kronos for timesheets. We recently transitioned to win7 (from XP), and to get Kronos working again we have to run some virtualization app (citrix maybe? can't remember right now, definitely a vmware product though) to run IE8 and some obsolete java version. All for timesheets. Other than that it's pretty useable. At least compared to SAP, which is my only other timesheeting-experience.
awakeasleep 11y ago
You'll be sad to know that Kronos continues to make life miserable for employees and managers in businesses around the world.

gaius 11y ago

I've always wanted to visit SAP headquarters in Germany and see how they book their own vacations and submit their own expenses. It can't be with their own software...