I saw the title of this article in my RSS reader I knew who wrote it, before even opening it up. You're a good writer Thomas and your topics are on point.

Raza Imam
http://softwaresweatshop.com

Today I wrote a blog post about my ambivalence to ERP.

Has there ever been a time where enterprise software has been more relevant? Yes, its relevant because we're asked to rationalize everything; with enterprise software implementations at the top of the list.

Do we _really_ need this system/service? Does it _have_ to be from this vendor? They are charging us _how much_ each year for _what_ exactly?

These are questions that IT departments must be held to answer for the business. IT departments, compared to Marketing for example, have long been immune from drastic budget cuts - mostly because of the switching costs of a built-out infrastructure but also because of the IT esotericism we promote.

Yes, the exciting things happening in the consumer/web space right now are sexy. But its noise to fill the void, and this void won't be filled by hawking enterprise software to the business. IT departments should be implementing things like SaaS, Cloud Computing, and open source as solutions for the business. Things that take little (if any) capex and can be implemented relatively quickly, unlike most enterprise software solutions.

I completely agree to this. It is not about devices. It is making your people more productive. One of the key disctractions is the non-integration between enterprise applications and desktop applications. Integrating them would earn the company so much money. Aberdeen Group (Do more with less - merging enterprise applications with desktop tools) and The Economist (enterprise knowledge workers; understanding risks and opportunities) have written really nice research documents on this.

they have found out that 97% of the respondents use e-mail as their first application and that 66% of the people need to find a workaround to find the information they need to find in a combined enterprise and desktop application.

The companies that are successfull integrating the two types of applications increased the margins with 21% while the laggards lost 1% margin.

Also best-in-class companies reduced the time-to-decision with 27% while laggards didn't decrease this at all.

Thank you! I have been in the software industry for for over 20 years and mostly in marketing. This is the best article I have read in a long time. Finally someone clearly communicates what needs to be said. Never has there been a time when the business and IT communities need to focus on what matter most - business software that runs the business. Thanks.

the 'enterprise' is fairly corrupt, ignorant, underpaying, political entity that as a whole not only greatly undervalues and under-compensates IT but also tends reduce in force. aside from the socio-economic dilemma of doing anything for the enterprise, erp in its current incarnation is something from the binary stoneages retro-fitted to the distributed, cloud or not, world. sadly, SAP and Oracle think a web interface accomplishes that.

your article indicates that you seem just as uninspired as the major vendors and have totally bought into the erp myth. maybe you ought to look at the architecture of twitter and face book and their API's to understand the enormous potential, even, or especially, for enterprise app's. of course, that's assuming the ERP is a valid design concept, which in itself is questionable.

from an economics perspective, though, working for the enterprise pays jack shit; a good iphone-type app even at $0.69/pop has got the money rolling in a month than a year's IT pay. demand and supply, my friend, and as far as i can tell, there is little legitimate demand from the enterprise for good to hi-end developers and all their 'demands' and 'social ineptitude' (the latter being a separate topic).

bottom line: enterprises treat and compensate developers poorly, provide undesirable work-environments, and generally tend to (out-)source the 'real work' to consulting firms that have no ability or interest, for that matter, to employ capable developers. so while IBM RIFs and offers relocation to some third-world country and third-world pay, silicon valley companies are moving parts of their development environments to desirable locations at Developed country pay, heck, even SAP has spain and portugal offices at German pay, and entrepreneurial opportunities, such as iphone and andriod, abound ...

later,
robby
guernsey/nadi, viti levu
formerly manhattan, nyc

ps: last time i checked, the enterprise insists on on-site appearances in largely undesirable locales. vive la app store.