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Amusing, but the issues with Enterprise Software are far more complex than that. Having spent my career working with Enterprises of one sort or another, here ar

Amusing, but the issues with Enterprise Software are far more complex than that. Having spent my career working with Enterprises of one sort or another, here are a few off the top of my head: 1. You are not the customer. With ad-driven products, we have painfully realized that if we aren't paying, we aren't the customer, and when something seems awful to us, the explanation often lies in the fact that the thing that is awful to us benefits the real customer, or perhaps that the thing that benefits us is of little value to the real customer compared to things that do not benefit us. The same is true of Enterprise Software. Most users are not the software's customer, and therefore their needs are subordinate to the needs of the individuals and departments who are actually paying for it. 2. Pricing-Driven Development As Spolsky famously pointed out, Enterprises forcibly impose an insane cost-of-sales on software vendors. When you have to employ expensive salespeople, prepare proposals, apocryphally play golf with clients, or whatever, vendors must build those costs into the cost of the product. Then they must justify those costs with features that sound like they produce big values. Typically these are not going to be things that make users' lives easier, they are going to be things that users may never see, like analytics and back-office integrations. Like the "you are not the customer" problem above, this tends to create the illusion that the software sucks and that the vendor isn't improving it. In actual fact, the vendor is locked into a Red Queen's Race with competing vendors, and is improving the software constantly. It's just that users never benefit from the improvements, because UX improvements are not thought to "move the needle."

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
>their needs are subordinate to the needs of the individuals and departments who are actually paying for it. Are you implying people are paying for dropped calls and poor performance as a feature?
- braythwayt 8y ago
  I'm implying that sometimes, "Improve ability to handle scale as measured by X improvement in dropped calls and Y improvement in user-reported call quality" is always going to be in the backlog, but it is probably being starved by other initiatives like "Support integration with BigClient Internal System Z." That's a scenario where the needs of the people making and receiving calls are subordinate to the needs of the people paying for Skype.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  But reading what I wrote, I see why you asked. Yes, sometimes there is a thing that is bad for the user and simultaneously perceived to be good for the person paying, like a lot of the ceremony you have to do to get anything to happen in JIRA. But sometimes it is a question of different priorities, and I did not mention that above. Good catch.
- magduf 8y ago
  The people experiencing dropped calls aren't the people who made the purchasing decision. The people experiencing poor performance don't have a say in the matter and are required to use the tool, and the people who made the purchasing decision are getting what they want out of the deal.
  - badpun 8y ago
    In case of my company (a 40k employees multinational), everybody gets to suffer from Skype for Business' ridiculousness, I'm guessing even the people who bought it (heck, I'm guessing even the CEO is cursing it on a regular basis). Still, we use it.
    - xxs 8y ago
      Skype for business is not even 'skype'. Actually, it's "lync" branded as skype. Overall it's an awful product with hilarious built-in html render that ends in CPU saturation during group chat and a bit of html content. It takes like a minute to close itself if there are 20-30 chats.
      - sixothree 8y ago
        Even the executable is still named lync
      - usr1106 8y ago
        Right. As a Linux user I skipped most of Skype for Business experience. It cannot even do passive screen sharing (i. e. display what others share). A web client that cannot show all contents... And that for a paid service, every free aka customer is the product service works in Linux browsers. The old normal (not for business) Skype Linux client could even do active screen sharing (share your own screen) on Linux. Although it was limited to 1:1 calls IIRC. Haven't checked whether they have managed to break/remove that in the new Linux client...
    - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
      And this is proof that Microsoft is still a monopoly, because they can still force people to use software they don't want. Microsoft's biggest accomplishment in technology in the last 20 years is to teach everyone that software is horrible and there's nothing that can be done about it.
maxsilver 8y ago
> Then they must justify those costs with features that sound like they produce big values. Typically these are not going to be things that make users' lives easier, they are going to be things that users may never see, like analytics and back-office integrations. Yes, and depending on the enterprise, these "big features only there to justify high costs" may not actually be needed or useful or relevant. It might be 'OK' to have a bunch of interns slap something together, if it only needs to be "real" enough to look pretty and look functional in a few demos or in a few specific happy-day cases. Analytics and Reporting is probably the most common example I've seen of this -- it's not a bad feature on it's own, but companies will sometimes pay top dollar for it, even in places it makes no sense and/or will never get used. If that gets delivered in a broken/unusable state, it's "ok" because the customer will never actually click that button anyway. ---- If "New Skype" is "enterprise communication support" in a corporate feature list (and not a real product filling a real need, as it used to be) then I can see how a broken or unusable Skype could still be a 'success' for Microsoft. Note: I don't agree with any or support any of this. But I've seen this play out in real life enough to know it happens.
- CWuestefeld 8y ago
  This cuts both ways. We frequently get requirements in an RFP that we've got to put resources into supporting, but when everything gets put into place, the customer never uses the feature that they demanded. They wasted the cost of our investment into their demands.
pvg 8y ago
How does one play golf apocryphally?
- wdmeldon 8y ago
  Playing without the intention of treating it as a sport, but as an excuse to drink outdoors.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Somehow... that doesn't sound quite right.
    - risotto_groupon 8y ago
      I think they meant "apothecarily". As in, I play golf to self medicate.
      - braythwayt 8y ago
        Hilarious, I want to snarf that! But actually, I meant that it is apocryphal that salespeople have to play golf to close Enterprise Sales. It's more of a stand-in catch-all term for semi-formal socializing with the client.
        pvg 8y ago
        Right but it's not really apocryphal because apocryphal doesn't connote or denote stereotypical, proverbial, cliche, conventional wisdom, caricature, etc. Salespeople playing golf with customers to close enterprise sales is not some uncertain thing that has reached us through dubious sources.
        smsm42 8y ago
        It isn't? I certainly doubt whether it's true (not being in enterprise sales myself and not being important enough to end up on the other side of those sales) enough to make a cliche (I don't doubt somewhere somebody invited a client to golf to make a sale - but how common is it?) and haven't seen any reliable sources on the prevalence of it.
dzonga 8y ago
I have been trying to find that Spolsky article, please link it up if you can
- braythwayt 8y ago
  "Ask Joel," February, 2004, fourth item: https://discuss.fogcreek.com/askjoel/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1389 https://discuss.fogcreek.com/askjoel/default.asp?cmd=show&ix... "With software sold in corporations, as soon as your price gets up in the $3000 level, the amount of approval it needs is so absurd that you are not going to sell products without a salesperson making a few visits. Hiring the salesperson, sending them out to make presentations, hotels, airfare -- now it costs $50,000 to get the sale done just in sales closing costs. That's why you see a lot of software products at $100,000 and a lot under $3000, but anywhere in-between and it's impossible to make sales. (It's sort of funny -- these big corporations create so much bureaucracy around purchasing in order to protect themselves against losing money, but they just force the vendors to spend a fortune on salesforces, which results in vastly higher prices for the big corporations)."
smsm42 8y ago
That sounds plausible but does not explain why UI became so progressively horrible lately. I get that they may be developing corporate features I can't see, but why did they spend time on developing series of new UIs, each of them slower and crappier than the previous one?

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

>their needs are subordinate to the needs of the individuals and departments who are actually paying for it. Are you implying people are paying for dropped calls and poor performance as a feature?

braythwayt 8y ago
I'm implying that sometimes, "Improve ability to handle scale as measured by X improvement in dropped calls and Y improvement in user-reported call quality" is always going to be in the backlog, but it is probably being starved by other initiatives like "Support integration with BigClient Internal System Z." That's a scenario where the needs of the people making and receiving calls are subordinate to the needs of the people paying for Skype.
braythwayt 8y ago
But reading what I wrote, I see why you asked. Yes, sometimes there is a thing that is bad for the user and simultaneously perceived to be good for the person paying, like a lot of the ceremony you have to do to get anything to happen in JIRA. But sometimes it is a question of different priorities, and I did not mention that above. Good catch.
magduf 8y ago
The people experiencing dropped calls aren't the people who made the purchasing decision. The people experiencing poor performance don't have a say in the matter and are required to use the tool, and the people who made the purchasing decision are getting what they want out of the deal.
- badpun 8y ago
  In case of my company (a 40k employees multinational), everybody gets to suffer from Skype for Business' ridiculousness, I'm guessing even the people who bought it (heck, I'm guessing even the CEO is cursing it on a regular basis). Still, we use it.
  - xxs 8y ago
    Skype for business is not even 'skype'. Actually, it's "lync" branded as skype. Overall it's an awful product with hilarious built-in html render that ends in CPU saturation during group chat and a bit of html content. It takes like a minute to close itself if there are 20-30 chats.
    - sixothree 8y ago
      Even the executable is still named lync
    - usr1106 8y ago
      Right. As a Linux user I skipped most of Skype for Business experience. It cannot even do passive screen sharing (i. e. display what others share). A web client that cannot show all contents... And that for a paid service, every free aka customer is the product service works in Linux browsers. The old normal (not for business) Skype Linux client could even do active screen sharing (share your own screen) on Linux. Although it was limited to 1:1 calls IIRC. Haven't checked whether they have managed to break/remove that in the new Linux client...
  - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
    And this is proof that Microsoft is still a monopoly, because they can still force people to use software they don't want. Microsoft's biggest accomplishment in technology in the last 20 years is to teach everyone that software is horrible and there's nothing that can be done about it.

maxsilver 8y ago

> Then they must justify those costs with features that sound like they produce big values. Typically these are not going to be things that make users' lives easier, they are going to be things that users may never see, like analytics and back-office integrations. Yes, and depending on the enterprise, these "big features only there to justify high costs" may not actually be needed or useful or relevant. It might be 'OK' to have a bunch of interns slap something together, if it only needs to be "real" enough to look pretty and look functional in a few demos or in a few specific happy-day cases. Analytics and Reporting is probably the most common example I've seen of this -- it's not a bad feature on it's own, but companies will sometimes pay top dollar for it, even in places it makes no sense and/or will never get used. If that gets delivered in a broken/unusable state, it's "ok" because the customer will never actually click that button anyway. ---- If "New Skype" is "enterprise communication support" in a corporate feature list (and not a real product filling a real need, as it used to be) then I can see how a broken or unusable Skype could still be a 'success' for Microsoft. Note: I don't agree with any or support any of this. But I've seen this play out in real life enough to know it happens.

CWuestefeld 8y ago
This cuts both ways. We frequently get requirements in an RFP that we've got to put resources into supporting, but when everything gets put into place, the customer never uses the feature that they demanded. They wasted the cost of our investment into their demands.

pvg 8y ago

How does one play golf apocryphally?

wdmeldon 8y ago
Playing without the intention of treating it as a sport, but as an excuse to drink outdoors.
- pvg 8y ago
  Somehow... that doesn't sound quite right.
  - risotto_groupon 8y ago
    I think they meant "apothecarily". As in, I play golf to self medicate.
    - braythwayt 8y ago
      Hilarious, I want to snarf that! But actually, I meant that it is apocryphal that salespeople have to play golf to close Enterprise Sales. It's more of a stand-in catch-all term for semi-formal socializing with the client.
      - pvg 8y ago
        Right but it's not really apocryphal because apocryphal doesn't connote or denote stereotypical, proverbial, cliche, conventional wisdom, caricature, etc. Salespeople playing golf with customers to close enterprise sales is not some uncertain thing that has reached us through dubious sources.
        smsm42 8y ago
        It isn't? I certainly doubt whether it's true (not being in enterprise sales myself and not being important enough to end up on the other side of those sales) enough to make a cliche (I don't doubt somewhere somebody invited a client to golf to make a sale - but how common is it?) and haven't seen any reliable sources on the prevalence of it.

dzonga 8y ago

I have been trying to find that Spolsky article, please link it up if you can

braythwayt 8y ago
"Ask Joel," February, 2004, fourth item: https://discuss.fogcreek.com/askjoel/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1389 https://discuss.fogcreek.com/askjoel/default.asp?cmd=show&ix... "With software sold in corporations, as soon as your price gets up in the $3000 level, the amount of approval it needs is so absurd that you are not going to sell products without a salesperson making a few visits. Hiring the salesperson, sending them out to make presentations, hotels, airfare -- now it costs $50,000 to get the sale done just in sales closing costs. That's why you see a lot of software products at $100,000 and a lot under $3000, but anywhere in-between and it's impossible to make sales. (It's sort of funny -- these big corporations create so much bureaucracy around purchasing in order to protect themselves against losing money, but they just force the vendors to spend a fortune on salesforces, which results in vastly higher prices for the big corporations)."

smsm42 8y ago

That sounds plausible but does not explain why UI became so progressively horrible lately. I get that they may be developing corporate features I can't see, but why did they spend time on developing series of new UIs, each of them slower and crappier than the previous one?