That's consistent with my experiences. As several commentators mentioned, I think it's such a problem because decisions about enterprise software in big organizations are typically made by people who don't understand software, design, or information architecture. Smaller companies are much more responsive. It is a mistake (which I've made more than once) to assume that a large organization will make reasonable decisions.<p>It used to be that a successful business started with expertise in how to make widgets or rent cars or something and then tried to figure out information management. The new trend is for people who understand information management to start from there and get into some other business. Old-school businesses, even capital-intensive ones, which remain clueless are gradually becoming more irrelevant as newer information-savvy startups intrude on their turf.<p>And that is rather interesting.
I've always wondered why enterprise software is so shitty. The HMO Kaiser uses a DOS-based keyboard-controlled interface to schedule appointments. The interface consists only of white or green dots on a black background. But the computers are all fairly powerful machines running Windows XP.<p>Making an appointment requires the user (secretary, usually) to hold the arrow key down for several seconds as the screens scroll by. It is really the most time-wasting piece of software I have ever seen.<p>The interesting thing is that Kaiser probably bought the software at the lowest possible price, choosing the crappiest company to develop it. But in the end, it wastes so much time, confuses their employees so much, and pisses of their customers so much that it has probably cost them far more than it would have to just buy well-designed custom software.<p>In the future, I honestly think the best enterprise software will be in the form of web-based systems that run in browsers. It's easily updatable, uses standards-based technology, is fairly cheap to develop, and-- perhaps most importantly-- the users of the software have experience using interfaces on the web. Everyone uses the internet, even Kaiser's secretaries, so that will completely eliminate the learning curve of these retarded custom interfaces.