Is Enterprise Software Failing The Innovation Test?
future.gigaom.com
future.gigaom.com
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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).
I think there's a lot of reinvented wheels and overdesigned architecures in enterprise application build circles. Their users don't care about that.
"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."
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.
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)"
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.
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.