Infovark

The blogosphere exploded over the weekend with an exciting conversation about enterprise software.

The comments stem from Bill Gates, talking about the future of Microsoft, but the controversy was stirred up by Robert Scoble, who asked his readers how to make business software sexy?

Some of us who actually do this for a living took that to heart. Michael Krigsman attempted to explain the innate differences between enterprise and consumer software, only to be rebuked by Nick Carr:

“By perpetuating a false dichotomy between the friendliness of consumer apps and the seriousness of business apps, all that Krigsman is doing is giving enterprise vendors cover for continuing to produce software that’s difficult and unpleasant to use.”

But my favorite post so far came from SocialText’s Ross Mayfield:

“Enterprise software can do better. In fact it has to, because of broader competition. At least with basic usability. … Step out of the feature matrix. Also recognize that control instincts lead to unusable crap that is a barrier to collaboration. And every enterprise software app is a collaboration app, otherwise it’s infrastructure”

We all know a lot of enterprise software is horrible to use. It’s complicated, frequently counter-intuitive, and often requires extensive training.

Most people who use it daily don’t like it. They certainly don’t love it. Compare and contrast the following Google Searches:

“I love Facebook” vs. “I love Oracle E-Business Suite Financials”

We’ve talked about this a lot in the past, so I’ll try to keep this brief… How can we make enterprise software sexy?

Design it for People to use.

Enterprise Software is currently not designed for people to use — it’s designed to be bought by someone in senior management.

(Which is always good for the software vendors, but not always good for the enterprise, and rarely good for the people who happen to work there.)