When enterprise software will finally get respect

I was going to weigh in on the Bill Gates/Robert Scoble/ Michael Krigsman debate on whether enterprise software can or should get respect, but happily, Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Worthen chimed in this morning with exactly the response I was going to write. So the next time you hear Bill Gates complain that Microsoft gets no respect for the great work it does, think about this:

Nick Carr is next to weigh in, saying that reliability versus ease of use is a false choice. Good software should be both, and he points to Amazon.com’s Web site as an example of something that’s reliable, secure, and intuitive. Carr seems to think that people would care about business software if it was designed better.

Our feeling is that people do care about business software – if you spend eight hours a day in front of a computer, the quality of the software you use is going to have a big impact on your day. It’s just that much of this software is so frustrating to use that all the thoughts people have about this software is negative. Another factor: Most people who write about business software use language that you’d need a PhD in engineering to understand, turning away any non-techie.

If tech departments don’t find a way to make people care about the software their companies choose – and we think that ease of use is the factor that makes people care – then workers will start choosing their own software. Think salespeople buying subscriptions to Salesforce.com, when the company is supposed to use Siebel for salesforce automation.

A decade ago, the average worker was impressed when software worked. Today, people expect software that’s easy to use – you can blame the rise of consumer software (i.e. the stuff Gates thinks people care about) for that.

Said another way, the consumerization of technology -- created by consumer experiences with digital video recorders, iPods, and mobile phones -- has raised all our expectations way above breathless declarations of, "The Wow Begins Now.", especially when we confront real systems at work that increase workloads, enforce meaningless restrictions that don't help customers, and sport user interfaces that feel Kafka-esque in their user hostility. It's not surprising that enterprise software gets no respect; it is surprising that there aren't more cases of employees throwing their computers out windows in frustration.

Consumers and employees now expect technology to look good, help them do their jobs, and not make them feel dumb. Too much enterprise software does none of the above. Almost no software does all three. That's going to change, whether Bill Gates gets on board or not. And when it does, enterprise software will be sexy -- and that moment can't get here a moment too soon.

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