The iPhone took almost a decade to get to the appropriate functionality. The part you're leaving out is most executives just ended up carrying two devices and whined to IT about "why can't YOU make my iphone as good at email as my blackberry???"
>Enterprises thought they needed on-premise hosting of Exchange, Office and SharePoint instances under their control for email and productivity, until GSuite came up with a better, less configurable user
Except I can count on one hand the number of fortune 500 enterprises that moved to gsuite over o365.
>Slack is another proof point - the "consumerization of IT" trend in general.
I'm not even sure how this is relevant. Companies that were using skype for business or cisco jabber likely still have skype/jabber running alongside Slack.
This reads like someone who lives in the valley and thinks the valley is in any way reflective of corporate America. Hint: It's not.
That’s not true. The iPhone became good enough to replace the BlackBerry around 4 or 5 years in. By 2011, the BlackBerry was losing market share as Apple added enterprise features.
They do lots of other things a lot better, but email? Nope.
Based on reactions from co-workers though, it seems I'm much more efficient at touch-typing than most of them, even on a fullsize keyboard. And the experience does translate to a physical phone keyboard, even at the smaller size, so that may well be where some of the disconnect is.
Note also when touch-typing on my phone, I get the full speed by using both thumbs, not just one.
Case in point: people spelling "definitely" as (I assume) "definately" only to be autocorrected to "defiantly" without noticing. That sort of "correction" completely changes the meaning of a sentence.
Every time haptic feedback turns off for "power saving" when I'm running low on battery, I immediately wonder how anyone ever manages to type anything at all without mucking things up all the time.
I'd still prefer a physical keyboard, though.
Stipulated, it definitely depends on personal preferences and workflows as to what you personally prefer.
But it is pretty incontrovertible that Blackberry was a finely-honed email tool with departures from that core use case being pretty tightly defined around the things you do ancillary to email (setting appointments, reading attachments, etc.).
iPhone is worse at that particular thing -- but vastly more capable broadly speaking for a universe of other things.
Other than that, what specifically did it enable that the other phones didn't?
The BlackBerry Email client definitely didn’t have a method of integrating third party storage providers like Dropbox which was definitely a thing by 2011.
But, that's just me speculating...
The push service was quite good IMHO. Every carrier that supported BlackBerry Internet Service had a leased line or VPN to the RIM NOCs. The phones would connect to BIS servers at the carrier which then communicated over these backhauls to RIM. Because it was all so deeply integrated in the carriers network (I believe the BIS servers acted as a Gateway GPRS Support Node), the BIS servers knew exactly where on the network each phone was, so they could send essentially a UDP packet directly to the device, which was listening on a particular port. No long standing TCP connections, and of course if the device didn't acknowledge messages, they were queued at RIM for when the device reentered coverage.
Email was provided by a server side process that opened MAPI (the original exchange RPC protocol) connections to exchange mailboxes and asked to be pinged if there were changes in mailboxes. When that happened, the BES server would pull the changes, package them, forward them to the RIM NOC over the proprietary SRP protocol, which would locate the right carrier, send the packet over the backhaul, and then from the carrier it would make its way to the phone.
Source: used to run a BES server
With ActiveSync, my email will usually reach my phone/cellular watch/iPad before it reaches my computer.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/blackberry_gi...
https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/18/blackberry-ceo-wont-say-...
But in my experience, smaller businesses can actually be worse offenders in this regard. Large enterprises actually do have a lot of complex needs and even relatively small changes affect a lot of people. But I've had someone at a very small company argue with me that they needed their own Exchange server because Gmail (at the time) didn't have some features like sub-labels/folders that they were used to.
That's maybe another way of showing that UX is not the winning differentiator in enterprise that it is in consumer.
> This reads like someone who lives in the valley and thinks the valley is in any way reflective of corporate America.
I don't live in that valley, and I fully know that it doesn't reflect the rest of US or world, and that is why, indeed, enterprise UX does suck! :)
I think we agree... I'm not hearing an argument from you that it's because of superior UX that people are sticking to O365.
But it is. That and useful features. Both of which Office has, and GSuite has not.
I don't remember the name of that "Word lite" program that was included with Windows for free around Vista/7, which could open less sophisticated .doc files and was a default binding for .rtf files. But compared to Microsoft Office, GSuite is like that program, but on the web.
Meanwhile, the killer app of G Docs (collaboration) is a very frequently unanswered need. People emailing attachments with ridiculous names like "contract_v2_final_finalforreal.docx", making conflicting edits that cannot be reconciled, carrying USB sticks around because their PPT presentation is too big for email and they can never figure out how to use shared folders, etc.
Word has a lot of features and, for certain publishing needs, these are important.
But what gsuite adds is usability. You no longer need shared drives. You no longer need to email docs around, you no longer need Spec_new_v3_new.doc.
I don't even need my computer any more, I can use anyone's.
I also don't need the immense amount of publishing and formatting options word provides. What I need to do is create documents that can be shared and collaborated on easily.
Skype for business is an abomination, it’s morally wrong, it’s an evil that must die.
I’m hoping Zoom can murder it viciously.
The business world is complex.
Some complex business software is fantastic. For example Excel. It's complex but you can do amazing things with data without learning to program (which is most people). You can use it while being on or off the Internet (this is great on a plane).
For UX many have given up security features. Many of us now have free credit monitoring because that lack of security has lead to leaks everywhere. I know people who have had their identity stolen and even attacks on retirement funds all due to companies lacking in security. Our drive for the new shiny has left many vulnerable.
I would lay money that far more security vulnerabilities are due to overcomplicated customizability features than are due to simplified UX.
Within Office, it seems more practical to do ambitious things with Access, although that has its issues too. I apparently completely corrupted a database I've been using just by pasting part of a SQL statement that was >= 1024 characters as part of a VBA script.
Sure people could use notepad, onenote, powerpoint, other proprietary software, but they are comfortable in the grid like ridgularity of excel.
That was an uncomfortable day. ;)
Once you cross a time zone, your records are much harder to access.
There were many potential patient safety issues due to mishandling of times during that hour and the suggestion to just use the backup worked because it happens at 1 AM when little is going on other than emergencies which simply have to to manage with read-only access during that time.
I kinda like the idea of regular scheduled downtimes of stable systems, just for real experience on downtime procedures.
At the end of the day, it's just plain hard to create a clean effective product that can be used by 5,000+ person organizations.
Regardless of use-case, boatloads of data will be collected in large-enterprise software and it has to be transferred and presented to many end-users in a clear way. And very rarely will it be one exclusive universal data-type. Usually it will contain varying types of information that will be needed by multiple teams and maybe across several different office locations. And that's just the product issues, let's not talk about sales or compliance.
It's just plain hard.
Even if you make it up with additional willingness to pay per user, the market isn't always there for spending a lot to design, develop and iterate on the perfect UX.
SaaS makes the most money when users can self-service in large numbers at relatively low transaction costs, which typically means SMB should be your first market. The enterprise channel is where you go only once you have a mature product and a healthy revenue base to do the enterprise payola scheme with consulting companies.
Now what I see you arguing for is not "consumerization of IT", but infantilization of IT. Modern UX is oriented about dumbing down software, removing necessary features because they're "unused"[0], and about a myth that you can eliminate training time. Which is why people - again, not the users - buy into it. The sales strategy is: put it in the cloud, ask for subscription while screaming "it's OPEX and not CAPEX", and remove any and all features so everything looks slick on the demo, and the problem only becomes apparent when somebody tries to actually do something with it.
And then actual users have to suffer. For as much as software is eating the world, I wonder how much actual, hard productivity does the modern software of the web cost, compared to the software it displaced.
--
[0] - The way "data-driven" approach would tell you that there's no point adding airbags to cars, since almost nobody uses them ever.
I think there's a different dynamic at play: the individual is making purchasing decisions based not on what they think the business needs but on what they personally want. E.g. JIRA has a huge number of micromanagement features that I doubt procurement departments are looking for; rather they appeal to managers in companies where they're the ones making purchasing decisions.
- Model tasks as DAGs, not as lists. I.e. I want to work with a dependency graph (JetBrains thing sort of can do that with task relationships, but the UI isn't oriented towards exploiting it).
- If that's too much to ask, at least allow to nest arbitrary amount of subtasks, and not just one (like Jira and almost everyone else).
- Fast.
- Proper keyboard shortcuts (again, JetBrains is good at it, but it's missing some crucial shortcuts and UI concepts, like "add a subtask to current task" and "go back to parent task").
- Allow estimating how long the task will take, without having to specify when it'll start.
- Render a proper GAANT chart and do a critical path analysis.
I really think I'm not asking for much, and yet nothing I've seen can do it. Most Jira-like systems try hard to be "agile", which means sacrificing features and utility to chase misguided ideological purity (like the whole "no subtask" thing).
Seriously, if Emacs had a first-class support for real-time collaboration, Org Mode would be vastly better than all task management offerings on the market.
Almost seems like "micro-tasks" at this point.
Micro tasks are good.
I'm assuming your employer has never heard of printers or copy-paste. ;)
We have a similar value prop with our platform (we store PII including actual identity documents).
It's not about making it impossible for users to download and store sensitive data. Everyone knows that that's impossible - yet somehow Snapchat and its disappearing messages is still a thing.
Instead, it is intended to be coupled with policies. As long as the company has a policy against downloading/storing confidential information, then the company is covered.
Then, when a case of e.g identity theft happens through a rogue employee, the company can demonstrate that it has taken all reasonable steps to avoid it.
That is a much better position than showing up in court and saying "yeah, we didn't try to prevent people from downloading PII, that's impossible anyway".
MANY employers have folks who unless you put a speed bump in their way would have employees inadvertently sync their entire email history onto their kids computer or a random computer while traveling.
The ENTIRE POINT of MANY of google's settings is to allow for those railings to be put in place. This is so employees who aren't out to abuse data can go about their day with reduced risk of inadvertently screwing up.
This is a big risk factor (I'd argue a much bigger risk factor than intentional employee misbehvior).
Additionally, once these controls are in place you can actually drive even better security where needed - it is possible to do a USB / printer / no phone lockout for high security ops - and is done when needed (very rarely). Thin clients are actually popular here - remote desktops another layer making it harder to dump the x million records out of system.
Many companies have strict regulations on data retention and they’re regularly audited to ensure compliance. By keeping the data off employee computers, compliance is simplified.
(And many companies are using MDM along with the iPhone, so it's not like they don't think they need control there.)
There are a handful of banks, but they have all the money. The specialized features they care about speak very loudly at feature prioritization meetings.
O365 far exceed Gsuites market share and is generally better for users because most companies users still use the Outlook desktop client.
MS Teams exceeds Slacks market share. Team instant communication is a minor blip in the overall market for Enterprise software.
> Notice how all of these are associated with crappier UX.
Having configuration that adopts to compliance and regulation is UX. The U in the UX is just not the end user but the admin user.
Consumerization of IT is absolutely a thing, but not for this is for productivity apps, not enterprise grade apps - you're conflating the two.
To pretend like all of the features demanded by enterprise middle and upper management is irrelevant and unthoughtful, as another comment said, is just "typical SV think". UX to the end user is certainly becoming much more relevant in the enterprise space, it's not as black and white as you think.
(note - i'm a former SAP employee and I've certainly seen my fair share of shit)
Just today I met with someone who carries two laptops for work: one that is enterprise-IT sanctioned to access internal resources and is super restricted; the other one to do actual work. How does he work with two laptops? SDcards. In 2019.
The fact that all the craptastic enterprise UX is holding on so well in terms of the $ amount indeed is the observation: enterprise services for the most part do suck. I don't think, and I didn't say, that it's always a winning commercial strategy to focus on UX when it comes to enterprise. Based on available evidence, I too would conclude that focusing on giving middle managers a power trip of control options looks like the better strategy, UX be damned.
Well the average business is by definition not an enterprise. Enterprises need things like a solid AD integration, self hosting, enough monitoring coverage to put things like DLP and anti virus controls in place (yeah I know anti virus sucks, but work in a company with 10,000+ people, and you’ll see it getting genuine hits every day).
The fact is a lot of the modern software with good UX that we all love doesn’t meet these basic requirements, or at least doesn’t meet them as well as the old enterprise stuff does.
Many “enterprises” are their own worst enemy in terms of UX, by simply not valuing it enough. But I’ve worked in some that have made incredibly well organized, well resourced, and well supported attempts to modernize their technology stacks, and the truth is that the best and most innovative software that’s produced today, often (and perhaps rightly) doesn’t have the basic needs of enterprise in mind. So even with the best intentions, you often end up stuck using apps with poor UX.
As a side note, you can do absolutely fantastic DevOps in enterprise these days (even if you’re on a VMware stack). But a lot of the user facing stuff still sucks. Especially IM, which is why I have little hope that the enterprise love of email will die anytime soon.
Control needs, yes, but there’s still a massive amount of trust required.
If the software could always prevent you from doing the « wrong » thing, then that task would be automated. Logging every action isn’t the complicated part.
But the bit about workflows is 100% true. No two hospital systems are the same. You can’t buy your Diagnostic Imaging equipment from the same vendor as your registration system, each with their own workflow.
You could probably fingerprint every hospital system based on which different clinical vendors they’ve adopted for their various functions.
... which adds features to the product as a whole, which other customers will need to be aware of and might take advantage of.
Yes, I too have seen the phenomenon of having too many people demanding features where the result turns out to be an incoherent mess. But I also know that if the massive amount of time and money that had been spent purchasing a box-ticking Enterprise Software Solution and subsequently hammering the awkward, unwieldy platform into some semblance of working order had been spent instead on direct improvements to the existing workflow software, then everyone would have been much more satisfied. And yeah I know I shouldn't speak hypothetically but you'll just have to decide to trust me on this or not.
Sometimes (I have no global numbers to even guess at how often), they end up discovering that the COTS product requires expert-level configuration and administration anyway and now they're footing the bill for someone else's licensed solution and a staffer to understand it and make it work.
iPhones and smartphones in general have greatly increased the risk of data theft or being spied.
Insurance companies are more than happy that others have switched to smartphones (I worked in insurance consulting for cyber risks)
I don't think your comment is accurate, based on my first-hand knowledge of large companies that use gsuite, as well as their customer list in the above link.
My partner worked here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LafargeHolcim
They used gsuite for email, o365 for other aspects. Required iPhones if you wanted a device - wouldnt allow android at the time... but that may have changed since
There absolutely are outlier businesses like banking, government, healthcare and other highly regulated fields where they do have critical control needs. Notice how all of these are associated with crappier UX.
But the average business does not really have such needs, or at least it can be a mistake to blindly trade off employee happiness and productivity against feature checklists, yet that is typically the approach employed by procurement experts.