4 ms·

Is Enterprise Software Failing The Innovation Test?

23 points by luccastera 19y ago

edu 19y ago
Yes.
umjames 19y ago
It's funny how the person being interviewed is the CEO of a company that makes products that require the same expensive, over-hyped crap that he says is keeping "innovation" from happening in enterprise software. Otherwise, it's just more buzzword-compliant riggamaroll spewed by yet another clueless "enterprise" corporation. Enterprise software lacks innovation because it's doing all the things that startups know don't work. Expensive, closed, proprietary software running on over-hyped big-iron servers, purchased by idiot execs and managers, maintained by clock-watching office drones who are working for old-school face-time-focused companies.
- comatose_kid 19y ago
  Hmm...but amazingly, these companies are profitable. It is easy for technologists like ourselves to only think about...well...the technology. What about the psychology behind the decision process? A little thought experiment - say that you created enterprise software that worked perfectly, but was inexpensive, easy to use, and ran on a Commodore 64 (okay, or some low end PC). Would Cisco even let you through the door? Also, no matter how good the system you create might be, it still costs your customer time and retraining to implement and support your new solution. One last thing to think about (and to echo my first point) From Cialdini's 'Influence, Science and Practice': [Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey] "had been a struggling brand until its managers decided to raise its price to a level far above its competitors. Sales skyrocketed, even though nothing was changed in the product itself (Aaker, 1991)"
  - umjames 19y ago
    Which companies are profitable, the enterprise software companies or the corporations that buy their software, or both? I'm not blaming enterprise software companies for making money selling mediocre technology that doesn't work as well as advertised. I'm more upset with the companies that continue to buy such software, even when they know going in that it doesn't work as well as advertised. It's exactly what PG describes in his "News from the Front" essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html). A lot of these enterprise software companies rely on corporations trying to cover their asses by buying enterprise software from big companies. It makes everyone feel safer in terms of perceived job security, but does it actually work well? Most of the time, the answer is no. I'm not saying it won't take time to retrain people on better technology. I'm saying that, in a world where IT departments aren't seen as cost centers, better technology (meaning that it works well, is easy to setup and maintain, and is robust enough to work with other technologies not created by the same company) will yield better results in all aspects. I realize that IT departments and enterprise software vendors won't do such things. I guess that's why I come here so often.
migpwr 19y ago
Does it need to? I am going to take the unpopular stance on this and say no... enterprise software does not need to be innovative, it just needs to work. redhat, vmware, oracle, microsoft etc... they all deliver what their customers need, not stuff that impresses magazine editors. The software keeps steadily getting better and although they don't have every whizbang feature in the book, they get the job done... that's what matters. Do you have a better, faster way to do backups? A solution to documentation everyone hates so much? We'll pay for it if you've got it... after someone else goes first.
- neilc 19y ago
  There are hard problems in enterprise software that require innovative solutions. For example, data warehousing is crying out for better technology, and as a result, there are a multitude of startups building new technology to compete with the established players. Stream processing is another area with a ton of innovation, as is business intelligence/analytics, virtualization, security, etc. There's tons of innovation around financial services: building systems to facilitate automatic trading systems based on financial models. One important difference between these markets and the typical consumer startup is that enterprises are inherently more conservative, and for good reason. You need to be able to offer an enterprise a lot of value, in exchange for the inherent risk of going with a startup with unproven technology. That means your value proposition needs to be compelling: you need to solve a real problem, and effectively allow the customer to make more money than they're paying for your software. Frankly, I think saying "there's not much innovation in enterprise software" just indicates how much of an echo chamber the online startup community is. There is plenty of innovation, it is just rarely described by TC, Om, and the rest.
  - mattculbreth 19y ago
    Good post. This forum is slanted heavily towards consumer-based web apps. Certainly nothing wrong with that, and I'm a big user myself. But I'm not sure that there's really a lot of experience here working in the enterprise space. The ages alone (from another recent thread) would seem to back that up. That said, there's some dreadfully boring, stodgy software out there that companies spend quite a bit of money buying. My startup is aiming directly at this space (BI, as you've pointed out).
edw519 19y ago
If idiots implement garbage using a certain technology, is it the fault of the technology? Whether it's relational database, client/server, green screen, closed source, etc., etc., etc..., for every horror story, there are a hundred successes. The fact that Web 2.0 presents wonderful opportunities doesn't diminish the capabilities of other technologies just because someone with a hidden agenda says so. SAP was a scam shoved down the throats of very large companies by their own auditors, using Y2K as blackmail, in order to add on their own high margin services on the back end. Big ERP has desperately tried to "scale down" to medium and small organizations with limited success, just as new technologies are "scaling up" to service the demand of the unsatisfied millions. No secret here who the winners will be.
henning 19y ago
I thought the entire point of "enterprise" was accepting low development velocity and bad design in exchange for support and scalability (however akward). So, by definition, yes. By design, yes.
nikolaj 19y ago
I liked his criticism of big archaic architectures built up by armies of consultants.. until he said this: "This new predictive system is the service-oriented architecture (SOA) I spoke of earlier. We call it that because it serves you and your customers better."
- bsaunder 19y ago
  Yeah, "it serves you ... better" ... reminds me of the Mauve DB dilbert (it has more RAM).
jdvolz 19y ago
I liked this part the best: "Some of my banking customers have infrastructures that are bigger than the public Internet in terms of the storage they consume, given all the data and equipment they have to support." Somehow, I doubt that anyone has a system larger than the public internet particularly as measured by storage. Can you imagine trying to sell that much hard drive space to someone? Yeah, you need more space than the Internet! I bet they aren't even using as much space as YouTube. I tuned out after reading this comment in the article. Ever since I read PG's article about PR I've been leery of articles that stink of PR. This article reeks of it and then he goes and makes an incredible claim with no backup. There are hundreds of other articles I could be reading, I'm done with yours.
- bsaunder 19y ago
  Yeah, he hardly seemed like an enlightened CEO... exactly the kind of person I want running my competition.
joshwa 19y ago
This may just be my recent experience talking, but I think the problem in corporate IT is an excess of formalism.. or Religion. You have the "Enterprise Architects" running around thinking that if you abstract everything away, that someone will be able to grok the whole process and eliminate redundancies and magically you'll have a better organization. Then you have the Agile people, and the Six Sigma people, and the RUP people, and the IT Governance Nazis... Add to that the typical corporate risk aversion, and the "nobody ever got fired for yet another kick-off for a new initiative with a Three Letter Acronym," and what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value. Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. This not just for the average developer who has an idea-- it goes all the way up to the C-suite. For corporate America to fix this, you need CTOs and CEOs who are willing to be ruthless about paring down ridiculous initiatives and barriers to getting things done. Radically simplified IT governance, along with a genuine attitude shift towards accepting non-zero risk, is what will enable corporate IT innovation.
- mattculbreth 19y ago
  Great post. I've been up against the Enterprise Architect syndrome and sadly I've lost. It really just kills productivity, in addition to innovation.
- bsaunder 19y ago
  "what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value" I agree completely, fortunately (or maybe unfortunately depending on your view), this waste employees lots of people who want just a "job and a paycheck please". I think in the coming year or two, there will be an awakening here. Agile Web 2.0 stuff will start to show business users the things they can do when "Enterprise Architects" get out of the way. "Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. " No kidding. I learned my lesson on this over the last two years. I actually think the change will come from the business users. There will be profoundly cheaper alternatives to traditional Enterprise applications in the coming years. I don't have faith in CEOs and CTOs to see this coming.
daniel-cussen 19y ago
CEO's should start firing people who buy IBMs.

23 points by luccastera 19y ago

edu 19y ago

Yes.

It's funny how the person being interviewed is the CEO of a company that makes products that require the same expensive, over-hyped crap that he says is keeping "innovation" from happening in enterprise software. Otherwise, it's just more buzzword-compliant riggamaroll spewed by yet another clueless "enterprise" corporation. Enterprise software lacks innovation because it's doing all the things that startups know don't work. Expensive, closed, proprietary software running on over-hyped big-iron servers, purchased by idiot execs and managers, maintained by clock-watching office drones who are working for old-school face-time-focused companies.

comatose_kid 19y ago
Hmm...but amazingly, these companies are profitable. It is easy for technologists like ourselves to only think about...well...the technology. What about the psychology behind the decision process? A little thought experiment - say that you created enterprise software that worked perfectly, but was inexpensive, easy to use, and ran on a Commodore 64 (okay, or some low end PC). Would Cisco even let you through the door? Also, no matter how good the system you create might be, it still costs your customer time and retraining to implement and support your new solution. One last thing to think about (and to echo my first point) From Cialdini's 'Influence, Science and Practice': [Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey] "had been a struggling brand until its managers decided to raise its price to a level far above its competitors. Sales skyrocketed, even though nothing was changed in the product itself (Aaker, 1991)"
- umjames 19y ago
  Which companies are profitable, the enterprise software companies or the corporations that buy their software, or both? I'm not blaming enterprise software companies for making money selling mediocre technology that doesn't work as well as advertised. I'm more upset with the companies that continue to buy such software, even when they know going in that it doesn't work as well as advertised. It's exactly what PG describes in his "News from the Front" essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html). A lot of these enterprise software companies rely on corporations trying to cover their asses by buying enterprise software from big companies. It makes everyone feel safer in terms of perceived job security, but does it actually work well? Most of the time, the answer is no. I'm not saying it won't take time to retrain people on better technology. I'm saying that, in a world where IT departments aren't seen as cost centers, better technology (meaning that it works well, is easy to setup and maintain, and is robust enough to work with other technologies not created by the same company) will yield better results in all aspects. I realize that IT departments and enterprise software vendors won't do such things. I guess that's why I come here so often.

migpwr 19y ago

Does it need to? I am going to take the unpopular stance on this and say no... enterprise software does not need to be innovative, it just needs to work. redhat, vmware, oracle, microsoft etc... they all deliver what their customers need, not stuff that impresses magazine editors. The software keeps steadily getting better and although they don't have every whizbang feature in the book, they get the job done... that's what matters. Do you have a better, faster way to do backups? A solution to documentation everyone hates so much? We'll pay for it if you've got it... after someone else goes first.

neilc 19y ago
There are hard problems in enterprise software that require innovative solutions. For example, data warehousing is crying out for better technology, and as a result, there are a multitude of startups building new technology to compete with the established players. Stream processing is another area with a ton of innovation, as is business intelligence/analytics, virtualization, security, etc. There's tons of innovation around financial services: building systems to facilitate automatic trading systems based on financial models. One important difference between these markets and the typical consumer startup is that enterprises are inherently more conservative, and for good reason. You need to be able to offer an enterprise a lot of value, in exchange for the inherent risk of going with a startup with unproven technology. That means your value proposition needs to be compelling: you need to solve a real problem, and effectively allow the customer to make more money than they're paying for your software. Frankly, I think saying "there's not much innovation in enterprise software" just indicates how much of an echo chamber the online startup community is. There is plenty of innovation, it is just rarely described by TC, Om, and the rest.
- mattculbreth 19y ago
  Good post. This forum is slanted heavily towards consumer-based web apps. Certainly nothing wrong with that, and I'm a big user myself. But I'm not sure that there's really a lot of experience here working in the enterprise space. The ages alone (from another recent thread) would seem to back that up. That said, there's some dreadfully boring, stodgy software out there that companies spend quite a bit of money buying. My startup is aiming directly at this space (BI, as you've pointed out).

edw519 19y ago

If idiots implement garbage using a certain technology, is it the fault of the technology? Whether it's relational database, client/server, green screen, closed source, etc., etc., etc..., for every horror story, there are a hundred successes. The fact that Web 2.0 presents wonderful opportunities doesn't diminish the capabilities of other technologies just because someone with a hidden agenda says so. SAP was a scam shoved down the throats of very large companies by their own auditors, using Y2K as blackmail, in order to add on their own high margin services on the back end. Big ERP has desperately tried to "scale down" to medium and small organizations with limited success, just as new technologies are "scaling up" to service the demand of the unsatisfied millions. No secret here who the winners will be.

henning 19y ago

I thought the entire point of "enterprise" was accepting low development velocity and bad design in exchange for support and scalability (however akward). So, by definition, yes. By design, yes.

nikolaj 19y ago

I liked his criticism of big archaic architectures built up by armies of consultants.. until he said this: "This new predictive system is the service-oriented architecture (SOA) I spoke of earlier. We call it that because it serves you and your customers better."

bsaunder 19y ago
Yeah, "it serves you ... better" ... reminds me of the Mauve DB dilbert (it has more RAM).

jdvolz 19y ago

I liked this part the best: "Some of my banking customers have infrastructures that are bigger than the public Internet in terms of the storage they consume, given all the data and equipment they have to support." Somehow, I doubt that anyone has a system larger than the public internet particularly as measured by storage. Can you imagine trying to sell that much hard drive space to someone? Yeah, you need more space than the Internet! I bet they aren't even using as much space as YouTube. I tuned out after reading this comment in the article. Ever since I read PG's article about PR I've been leery of articles that stink of PR. This article reeks of it and then he goes and makes an incredible claim with no backup. There are hundreds of other articles I could be reading, I'm done with yours.

bsaunder 19y ago
Yeah, he hardly seemed like an enlightened CEO... exactly the kind of person I want running my competition.

joshwa 19y ago

This may just be my recent experience talking, but I think the problem in corporate IT is an excess of formalism.. or Religion. You have the "Enterprise Architects" running around thinking that if you abstract everything away, that someone will be able to grok the whole process and eliminate redundancies and magically you'll have a better organization. Then you have the Agile people, and the Six Sigma people, and the RUP people, and the IT Governance Nazis... Add to that the typical corporate risk aversion, and the "nobody ever got fired for yet another kick-off for a new initiative with a Three Letter Acronym," and what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value. Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. This not just for the average developer who has an idea-- it goes all the way up to the C-suite. For corporate America to fix this, you need CTOs and CEOs who are willing to be ruthless about paring down ridiculous initiatives and barriers to getting things done. Radically simplified IT governance, along with a genuine attitude shift towards accepting non-zero risk, is what will enable corporate IT innovation.

mattculbreth 19y ago
Great post. I've been up against the Enterprise Architect syndrome and sadly I've lost. It really just kills productivity, in addition to innovation.
bsaunder 19y ago
"what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value" I agree completely, fortunately (or maybe unfortunately depending on your view), this waste employees lots of people who want just a "job and a paycheck please". I think in the coming year or two, there will be an awakening here. Agile Web 2.0 stuff will start to show business users the things they can do when "Enterprise Architects" get out of the way. "Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. " No kidding. I learned my lesson on this over the last two years. I actually think the change will come from the business users. There will be profoundly cheaper alternatives to traditional Enterprise applications in the coming years. I don't have faith in CEOs and CTOs to see this coming.

daniel-cussen 19y ago

CEO's should start firing people who buy IBMs.