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The corporate mindset is the problem. They've got to get away from the hubris of thinking their software testing process is so special or better than the commu

The corporate mindset is the problem. They've got to get away from the hubris of thinking their software testing process is so special or better than the community's. Although it's a pretty cushy assignment. I'm sure plenty of bigcorp PMs would rather do that than to manage something with more complicated deliverables.

Nitramp 15y ago
I agree. The assumption here is that the corporate IT mindset is the constant factor, and Mozilla, Chrome, or whatever, have to adapt to it. I don't agree with that assumption. Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. If your internal software is so crappy you can't upgrade your browser, maybe you should try and fix your internal software.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  > Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. Corporate IT guys get a lot of grief about imposing picky rules and making life difficult, but the bottom line is that they are the guys who are going to take the flak if stuff breaks. Most of these policies are not there because someone at the head office wants to throw their weight around, they are there because a lot of people on the corporate network really could cause serious damage without even knowing how or why if left to do whatever they wanted. If you want to blame someone for this cultural problem, blame the big software and infrastructure providers, who haven't yet collectively invented a robust global IT architecture where risk can reliably be localised to the user at fault. Or step up and do something about it and get very rich, because it's a real problem facing literally billions of staff every day. Alternatively, you could take the view that cloud computing is the way forward, releasing a new browser every three months will make these sorts of problems go away, and everyone who develops in-house tools and operates a conservative IT policy is a moron with no idea how to run a successful business. Good luck with that. :-)
  - Nitramp 15y ago
    > That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Releasing a browser every three months (or constantly, such as Chrome) does make a lot of problems go away. And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well - just because you're developing in-house tools doesn't mean they have to suck and only work on IE6.00.14.13 patch level 3 with the right fonts and ActiveX version installed. Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, the web is the more robust IT architecture you're asking for.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      > In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Indeed, but wouldn't such a plan start with building on a firm foundation that isn't going to get EOL'd and no longer support security updates after three months? The reality is that building on FF or Chrome now means trusting potentially critical business functionality to an outside group you can't control with a history of pushing breaking changes. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how they only release useful changes and the community testing is sufficient to prevent regressions, please keep in mind that both Firefox and Chrome have each outright broken both cosmetic rendering details and basic functionality recently, in minor/point releases that you wouldn't normally expect to change user-observable behaviour at all, plus of course there are many widely and less widely reported compatibility issues.) > And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well Don't tell that to anyone who uses Java applets and has spent significant time over the past few months working around the repeated screw-ups made by major browsers as they implemented new internal details. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how Java applets are yesterday's technology and browser vendors don't need to care about them any more, congratulations, you are a walking example of my point.) > Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, Or web application developers could learn a lot from corporate IT, depending on your point of view. Personally, I can't remember the last time I saw a business critical corporate IT system completely fail or a major deployment of old-fashioned desktop software block a whole company, while I see the trendy style of rapid-development cause major errors with alarming frequency. That applies to everything from Reddit falling over every ten minutes to Google Docs' seeming inability to display even basic documents and spreadsheets properly on all major browsers at any given time.
- Goladus 15y ago
  > Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. Who says the cloud-hosted solution isn't more expensive? Who says "experience" is the goal? A company cares about making money, and an internal browser-based app is simply a way to make money more efficiently. Often, the "corporate mindset" means cheap. If you don't need to worry about upgrading your browser, you don't need to blow money on developers just to keep up with cutting edge browser design and you can focus on developing technology that actually makes you more money. For example, if you had a system that involved scanning physical documents into an image repository, then having individual workers review and annotate every single document (using a browser-based app) and then manually make corresponding changes to the customer database. You are paid by an SLA-based contract based on the rate and number of images you are able to process in a billing period. Where would you rather invest your money? Keeping the crusty annotation browser-app up to date with the latest shiny new browser changes, or implementing OCR to increase the speed and efficiency you can process documents?
Goladus 15y ago
Hubris has nothing to do with it. It's just the reality in companies with existing revenue streams. If you have hundreds of agents using a web-based front-end to process loan applications, failure of the front-end app due to an unexpected change in the browser means an instant, measurable, and substantial loss in productivity and revenue.
mindcrime 15y ago
The corporate mindset is the problem. They've got to get away from the hubris of thinking their software testing process is so special or better than the community's. I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment, but there IS a difference that makes "their testing process" special... it's relative to their environment. Simply put, if there is a critical business app that XCorp is running, and it's closed-source FooApplication from MegaVendorCorp, then "the community" is unlikely to have tested their new browser against FooApplication. So XCorp would be foolish to roll out a browser, without additional internal testing, that verify that it works with FooApplication. And that's only the most trivial example... when you start talking about the interactions between different apps and different systems (all the varied SSO systems in existence, for example), you can easily have a case where an organization's internal environment will result in failures that would never be caught be the external testing of the browser vendor (and this true whether it's a F/OSS browswer, or something from Microsoft, Apple, Opera, etc.) Interal IT testing and certification isn't just a way for some bureaucrats to justify their positions... it really does serve an important purpose. That said, none of this is meant to argue against the notion that corporate IT departments need to improve their processes to become more agile, and more able to adapt quickly.

Nitramp 15y ago

I agree. The assumption here is that the corporate IT mindset is the constant factor, and Mozilla, Chrome, or whatever, have to adapt to it. I don't agree with that assumption. Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. If your internal software is so crappy you can't upgrade your browser, maybe you should try and fix your internal software.

Silhouette 15y ago
> Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. Corporate IT guys get a lot of grief about imposing picky rules and making life difficult, but the bottom line is that they are the guys who are going to take the flak if stuff breaks. Most of these policies are not there because someone at the head office wants to throw their weight around, they are there because a lot of people on the corporate network really could cause serious damage without even knowing how or why if left to do whatever they wanted. If you want to blame someone for this cultural problem, blame the big software and infrastructure providers, who haven't yet collectively invented a robust global IT architecture where risk can reliably be localised to the user at fault. Or step up and do something about it and get very rich, because it's a real problem facing literally billions of staff every day. Alternatively, you could take the view that cloud computing is the way forward, releasing a new browser every three months will make these sorts of problems go away, and everyone who develops in-house tools and operates a conservative IT policy is a moron with no idea how to run a successful business. Good luck with that. :-)
- Nitramp 15y ago
  > That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Releasing a browser every three months (or constantly, such as Chrome) does make a lot of problems go away. And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well - just because you're developing in-house tools doesn't mean they have to suck and only work on IE6.00.14.13 patch level 3 with the right fonts and ActiveX version installed. Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, the web is the more robust IT architecture you're asking for.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    > In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Indeed, but wouldn't such a plan start with building on a firm foundation that isn't going to get EOL'd and no longer support security updates after three months? The reality is that building on FF or Chrome now means trusting potentially critical business functionality to an outside group you can't control with a history of pushing breaking changes. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how they only release useful changes and the community testing is sufficient to prevent regressions, please keep in mind that both Firefox and Chrome have each outright broken both cosmetic rendering details and basic functionality recently, in minor/point releases that you wouldn't normally expect to change user-observable behaviour at all, plus of course there are many widely and less widely reported compatibility issues.) > And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well Don't tell that to anyone who uses Java applets and has spent significant time over the past few months working around the repeated screw-ups made by major browsers as they implemented new internal details. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how Java applets are yesterday's technology and browser vendors don't need to care about them any more, congratulations, you are a walking example of my point.) > Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, Or web application developers could learn a lot from corporate IT, depending on your point of view. Personally, I can't remember the last time I saw a business critical corporate IT system completely fail or a major deployment of old-fashioned desktop software block a whole company, while I see the trendy style of rapid-development cause major errors with alarming frequency. That applies to everything from Reddit falling over every ten minutes to Google Docs' seeming inability to display even basic documents and spreadsheets properly on all major browsers at any given time.
Goladus 15y ago
> Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. Who says the cloud-hosted solution isn't more expensive? Who says "experience" is the goal? A company cares about making money, and an internal browser-based app is simply a way to make money more efficiently. Often, the "corporate mindset" means cheap. If you don't need to worry about upgrading your browser, you don't need to blow money on developers just to keep up with cutting edge browser design and you can focus on developing technology that actually makes you more money. For example, if you had a system that involved scanning physical documents into an image repository, then having individual workers review and annotate every single document (using a browser-based app) and then manually make corresponding changes to the customer database. You are paid by an SLA-based contract based on the rate and number of images you are able to process in a billing period. Where would you rather invest your money? Keeping the crusty annotation browser-app up to date with the latest shiny new browser changes, or implementing OCR to increase the speed and efficiency you can process documents?

Goladus 15y ago

Hubris has nothing to do with it. It's just the reality in companies with existing revenue streams. If you have hundreds of agents using a web-based front-end to process loan applications, failure of the front-end app due to an unexpected change in the browser means an instant, measurable, and substantial loss in productivity and revenue.

mindcrime 15y ago

The corporate mindset is the problem. They've got to get away from the hubris of thinking their software testing process is so special or better than the community's. I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment, but there IS a difference that makes "their testing process" special... it's relative to their environment. Simply put, if there is a critical business app that XCorp is running, and it's closed-source FooApplication from MegaVendorCorp, then "the community" is unlikely to have tested their new browser against FooApplication. So XCorp would be foolish to roll out a browser, without additional internal testing, that verify that it works with FooApplication. And that's only the most trivial example... when you start talking about the interactions between different apps and different systems (all the varied SSO systems in existence, for example), you can easily have a case where an organization's internal environment will result in failures that would never be caught be the external testing of the browser vendor (and this true whether it's a F/OSS browswer, or something from Microsoft, Apple, Opera, etc.) Interal IT testing and certification isn't just a way for some bureaucrats to justify their positions... it really does serve an important purpose. That said, none of this is meant to argue against the notion that corporate IT departments need to improve their processes to become more agile, and more able to adapt quickly.