The Future of Enterprise Software: I Am So Scared, I Am So Excited

http://7thursdays.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/the-future-of-enterprise-software-i-am-so-scared-i-am-so-excited/

by nreece • 18 years ago

35 15 18 years ago

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edw519• 18 years ago

Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is".

Do you suppose that if he were a hacker today, he would be writing enterprise applications?

Enterprises are like oil tankers; they take forever to turn. But, as stories like this show, they have to turn. Say tuned. I wanna be around (with software in hand) when it happens.

willz3• 18 years ago

I think the Waste Management company is brilliant, and deserves respect. If you spend a hundred bucks for something that doesn't work, you would ask for a refund. I wonder why companies didn't do this before. Capitalism is dying because companies are no longer run by owners, but by "managers".

mlinsey• 18 years ago

"Capitalism is dying"? Where did this come from?

willz3• 18 years ago

From John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, the thesis of his book: "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism"

gruseom• 18 years ago

I wonder why companies didn't do this before.

I can shed light on one aspect of it. In large companies, if a failure is too big, it gets rebranded as a success. There are many strategies for doing this. (In one I saw, the failed project was spun off as a separate group to leverage all the "value" that had been created.) Absurd as this may be, it works, at least internally (and most failures are never made public).

This used to puzzle me, but I think there's a simple reason for it. It's ok to discuss minor failures because these can be blamed on middle managers. Huge fiascos, on the other hand, can't be. A huge fiasco was a huge project to begin with, and huge projects are sponsored by executives. These leaders are, like Madame X from the Flintstones, "much too important to be lost". Ipso facto, they can't fail.

What this means is that if the failure took place at the hands of a vendor, they will probably get away with it. Trying hold the vendor accountable makes you look bad. You can't brand the project a "success" and at the same time claim they didn't deliver.

So Waste Management is unusual among large companies, which (I believe) are frequently taken to the cleaners on these enormous software projects. What's hard to explain is why they decided to take such public action. Perhaps they have a leader of unusual courage or integrity.

vlad• 18 years ago

They probably felt they were respected like crap by the vendor. When one party has a disagreement with another, and there's a clear and obvious disparity in some kind of standing (be it social, financial, racial, age), the party getting screwed over may feel they need to take action against this or have no trouble gaining confidence to stand up against a perceived injustice, since they're fighting two battles for the price of one. It doesn't matter if the second cause has nothing to do with anything, such as if the difference is only perceived or didn't matter in the situation.

Whereas in actuality, the other company in question is likely simply trying to rip off everybody equally (equally, in other words, meaning as much as possible.)

willz3• 18 years ago

Thanks for sharing the experience. Makes perfect sense.

> What's hard to explain is why they decided to > take such public action. Perhaps they have a > leader of unusual courage or integrity.

The company is run by owners, not managers. That's the hope of capitalism.

mynameishere• 18 years ago

I occasionally scan job postings, and when I come to the letters,

SAP

...I just instantly close the page. I don't even know that much about them, but everything I've heard suggests they are IBM minus the illustrious history.

mtts• 18 years ago

The general perception seems to be that "SAP is expensive, difficult to implement and often doesn't work".

At least, that's what a SAP sales person said in a speech he gave at an event for SAP implementation partners.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

That's a heck of a sales pitch!

markbao• 18 years ago

$100 million and they couldn't develop something decent? I'm perplexed on why/how other companies didn't sue SAP for this and just swallowed the pill.

QFT: "...you really can’t fool all the people all the time."

simianstyle• 18 years ago

Can we stop blaming Jesse Spano already? It was like over a decade ago, and it wasn't her fault!

mpc• 18 years ago

I know, caffeine pill addiction is a sickness.

phaedrus2• 18 years ago

About time! As Alex Papadimoulis explained when he (briefly) changed the name of The Daily WTF to "Worse Than Failure", the problem is not just that so many software projects fail, it's that so many are passed off as a "success" just because they are finished, even if they don't work. That's "worse than failure" because at least you learn from failures.

I think the free market could curb the "software quality problem" but only if software companies are held accountable. If there were more awareness among software customers of the low quality of most software written, and a potential that a software company gets the bejeebus sued out them for shoddy work, then there are several good things would come of it: 1. Companies producing shoddy software would go out of business instead of scamming their way along. 2. When their asses are on the line, maybe they'll start demanding some quality before quantity. 3. Maybe we'll finally see a state or national licensing requirement for programmers, like there is for nurses and doctors.

The Future of Enterprise Software: I Am So Scared, I Am So Excited

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