RE: Is IT growth slowing?

["John Fleming" <johnf -at- ecn -dot- ab -dot- ca>]

Here's my own perception on software upgrades, and I'm going to focus
heavily on MS products here (at the risk of being labelled an MS
basher, which I probably am).

Many software upgrades try and add a whole pile of new features, but
don't necessarily fix the bugs in the old.

One of my favourite examples revolves around background images in
Excel spreadsheets.  I was overjoyed when, in Excel 97, I discovered
we can put background images in Excel spreadsheets.  (The feature may
have been present in earlier versions--but prior to that time, I was
working in an environment that used WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3).
What an *neat* idea ! !

The evil marketer in me immediately saw one powerful benefit for the
feature.  Imagine.  Producing a spreadsheet for a customer with the
company logo in the background.

What a potent marketing tool !  I soon discovered there is a catch--in
Excel 97 you can't *print* the background image.  A visit to the MS
web site revealed printing the background image had never been
programmed into Excel.  (I've always considered this a bug with the
feature.)

When MS came out with Office 2000, I thought for sure this bug would
be fixed.  I was disappointed.  (There is a work around, by the way.
Save the spreadsheet as an HTML document and then print it from IE
will print the spreadsheet with the background image.)

I'm sure every one of us could come up with similar stories about
features in software that would be wonderful if we could use them to
their full potential, only we can't because the programmers left
something important out.

Getting back to my original thought, another problem with many new
features is they do not add a whole lot of functionality for a lot of
users.  Who wants to part with hard earned cash for a bunch of built
in templates for marketing plans, business plans, legal documents and
the like--if the only reason for using the software is to do letters,
essays for school, and the phone list for the church choir or the
Toastmasters club.

Just these two factors alone would, in my opinion, make a lot of users
think twice about upgrading to a later version of the software until
there is no way to avoid the upgrade.

So, perhaps we are seeing a long term slowdown in IT, driven in part
by a perception that upgrades do not have a value added for the
consumer, and by another factor I haven't touched on--the fact there
are now computers in most offices and in a large percentages of home
(at least in the western world).  And I think we will see that
slowdown persist until there is a perception among consumers that the
products do have value added.

> Subject: Is IT growth slowing?
> From: Elna Tymes <etymes -at- lts -dot- com>
> Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 11:33:34 -0700
> X-Message-Number: 30

> There has been a recent spate of articles in business magazines
about
> the failure of IT to live up to its promise of reducing workload
while
> improving worker productivity.  This may be nothing more than sour
> grapes, but it's worth paying attention to.  Many companies have
> experienced the constant need for more and better hardware and
software,
> and the way that each new upgrade to a system results in more things
> that need attending to - kinda like a baby and the way it grows.
There
> are rumblings that part of the current economic problems in the
computer
> industry in general have to do with large numbers of client
companies
> deciding to make do with yesterday's technology - with the rationale
> that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

> Following the lead of Microsoft, most software and hardware
> manufacturers have adopted the policy of continual upgrades to
existing
> products as a means of assuring revenue growth.  Are we reaching -
or
> have we reached - the point where this policy is no longer
warranted,
> resulting in less demand for IT professionals across the board?  It
> could be argued that this downturn is mostly a marketing blip, but
one
> which is going to cause companies in the industry to have to rethink
how
> they provide value to their customers.  It could also be argued that
> this is a major turning point for the whole industry.

> What do you think?

--

John Fleming
Technical Writer
Edmonton, Alberta
email:     johnf -at- ecn -dot- ab -dot- ca



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