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I don't think all the interesting stuff has been written. But more importantly, I think a lot of the existing software is just terrible. Big old monsters that
by clarry 10y ago
I don't think all the interesting stuff has been written. But more importantly, I think a lot of the existing software is just terrible. Big old monsters that can be time consuming to learn, and which kinda lock you in for numerous reasons. Horribly inefficient cluttered user interfaces, with old paradigms that aren't necessarily a great way to interact with the computer... I think there's a lot of innovation to be made.
Money? That's harder, unfortunately. It's hard to innovate when people want to cling on to what they already know. Make an image processing & digital painting utility, and people would only complain that it's not photoshop. Make a word processor, people complain that it's not MS Office.
- nkobeissi 10y ago> Money? That's harder, unfortunately. It's hard to innovate when people want to cling on to what they already know. This is a core element of my questions that other answers are unfortunately not addressing. Even if you make software that's less clunky than legacy-grade Adobe Kamatsu-tractor like offerings, how do you make make switching lucrative to the point of achieving self-sustainability?
- jdgiese 10y agoI definitely agree that people are slow to switch from what they know, but I don't think it is impossible to build software that will make people jump ship on the old stuff. Take Sketch for example (http://www.sketchapp.com http://www.sketchapp.com). Everyone on our team used to use Adobe Illustrator, and now everyone uses Sketch instead, because for what we do, it is simpler and better.
- scalio 10y agoGood example, I think it is easier to dislodge old tractors with tools built for one specific thing, i.e. that do less, but do it so much simpler that they're just a joy to use (at least in comparison).
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoI've often though a good strategy would be to look at some incumbent (Quickbooks, Photshop, etc) then choose a subset of their customers (Landlords, Real estate agents, etc) you can target more effectively than they can.
- knikravesh 10y agoDo you think that in this particular case (Illustrator vs Sketch), the fact that Adobe employed a subscription model sped up the process of people being a bit uncomfortable and looking for alternative solutions?
- greenyoda 10y ago"Money? That's harder, unfortunately. It's hard to innovate when people want to cling on to what they already know." It's also hard to make money when there's so much free software available, some of which is quite good. For example, it would take a huge amount of effort to improve on the functionality of Libre Office, Paint.net, Audacity, Wireshark, etc. (just to name a few of the free programs I use) but since people can get these for free, a competing product would have to be a whole lot better to convince people to pay for it.
- tonyarkles 10y agoAll of those have piles of competition that make a bunch of money, except maybe Wireshark. In fact, I'm a paid user of the alternatives (MS Office, Photoshop, Reaper). I have used the free alternatives that you've mentioned, but relative to the commercial offerings, they are functional but clunky. I think there's still piles of room for innovation on the desktop, both for open source and commercial software. We've reached a lot of local optima, but things can still be a whole lot better. For an example of a Photoshop and Paint.net competitor, check out http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/ http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/. They've been around for a few years and seem to be doing quite well. BitWig is a new competitor in the DAW space: http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html.