| CIO Blogs
IT Blog Awards |
Subscribe
RSS news feed
Add to Technorati FavoritesRecent Posts
- Voicemail
- What Happens Next? EU and Obama ask the same question
- Tech Predictions 2009: Slow IT
- The Incognito Banking Corporation and the Fairy Godmother 2.0
- What happens to my product portfolio if …
- Technology that Matters
- Apple/O2 versus Blackberry/Vodafone versus Google/T-Mobile
- Tech Predictions 2009: Bricolage IT
- Why Business Models need Cloud Computing
- Now, who's the President?!
Navigate
Search the blog
« As the world turns... | Main | Microsoft is cool – if you are a teenager (or a home user)! »
Features Overrated
Nah, let’s not produce yet another obvious comment on the queues of people, anxiously waiting to buy - and maybe, just maybe even activate - their new iPhone 3G. After all, this is world news that nobody can escape from, easily beating missile tests in Iran and the election dispute in Zimbabwe.
What did strike me though in some early comments was the claim that the functionality of the iPhone is not so special at all, as many established smart phones contain similar features. Particularly the Japanese would not be interested in the new device, spoiled already for years by products that support even a lot more, including photography, live TV and an electronic wallet.
So why is it then, that some of the biggest queues were in Tokyo?
Guess it all comes down to Features being so Overrated, a persistent phenomenon in the IT market, not caused by users and consumers but by producers, analysts, industry watchers and consultants. I fell victim to it as well, in an earlier career as the chief developer of a commercial software tool: every new version of our product was shoved with additional features, just to stay in the Rat Race with our competitors. It was entirely about the check boxes, sent to us on surveys that had been put together by all and sundry, but not by the people that actually would be using our software.
I recently spoke on a CRM seminar where all major suppliers showcased their products. The upcoming SaaS challenger Salesforce.com was contemplated thoroughly and some competitors and analysts made the already familiar suggestion that the product is interesting, but yet too limited in functionality for mainstream, enterprise use. This amused one of our clients – recent winner of a prestigious annual CRM award - and he commented that if only all sales representatives in an organization would really use 30% of the simplest CRM package functionality on a daily basis, this would be a monumental leap forward. This argument also pertains to using word processors and spreadsheets: in the first instance, we may judge Google Application’s features too limited for enterprise purposes. Then, the majority of us may actually find too much in the package to absorb.
Features are overrated. And we may be so immersed in our check boxes and surveys that we don’t even notice that queue of business users. They are piling up to work with tools and applications that are basic, simple and – above all – fun to use.
Who knows, even sales reps might start to maintain their client records. Just because it is a cool thing to do. Or are we tempting fate now?
Posted by Ron Tolido on July 12, 2008 in
Strategy
| 
Digg this | 
Seed Newsvine
TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.capgemini.com/cgi-bin/blog/mt-tb.cgi/539
Comments
# on July 13, 2008 7:12 AM, Gaurav said:
You are absolutely right. Feature bloating as it is called. MS office is perhaps a shining example of it. I recently worked on a e-commerce package which did everything in world than running an online store . And then it had architecture which made doing simple things harder. Simple and minimal software is more useful on the other hand.
# on July 13, 2008 12:06 PM, Ron Tolido said:
@Gaurav: Thanks for the build. I am convinced that the quest for simplicity will contain the biggest challenges for the IT industry in the forthcoming years. For the first time, we will consider Feature Downgrades as something that is worth our money for a new release. Maybe we should consider decreasing version numbers as well, Oracle 10G could become 9G, etc.... I am betting a little bit on Google to be one of the shining examples of how to produce simple software and services. As long as they manage to build applications that are just as simple as their white, empty search form, there is still hope.
# on July 13, 2008 4:25 PM, Ivar Låberg said:
Ron, I'm not sure I agree with you 100% on this. Sure, in general features are overrated, and especially for products like iPhone. I mean, you don't buy Gucci sunglasses for the added features, do you?
But business software products are a bit different. A good friend of mine is delivering a set of software products to niche businesses, and he is pretty successful. Over the years his products have added an amazing number of features, but almost all of them are "productivity features", generally to speed up work or simplify use.
However, he was not successful at selling, based on features. I have been with him and seen the eyes of prospective customers glaze over totally during his enthusiastic run-through of features. I told him they don't get it, that he must carefully select cool/nice-to-have features to present. Advanced features are exactly that, advanced. However, the features helps protect his existing customer base. When a competitor tries to lure customers away, they can ask for features so-and-so which the competition can't do.
Which brings me to the fact that no matter how many riduclous features there are, you can always find that something is missing - or so well hidden and complex that you'll never find out how to use it, especially if geeks have gone feature crazy. (I am told that in high end Mercedes cars you can modify the number of seconds the number plate lights stay turned on, after you have left and locked the car. So there)
# on July 13, 2008 9:38 PM, Ron Tolido said:
@Ivar: not so sure if we really disagree, to my experience, winning the hearts of business users is indeed a matter of carefully identifying the right - limited - set of features that truly move them. All the rest is only crucial to the people that select tools: consultants, etc. It does not mean that they should be ignored, because they actually make the buying decisions. I am just wondering where the queues would be if business users could select solutions themselves...
And for the Mercedes: now I finally understand why I never wanted one, I was missing the number plate option...
# on July 14, 2008 11:49 AM, Mark Nankman said:
Nicely put, Ron. I agree too. But coolness just sells so much better than bare usefullness. And when you're good at combining coolness, usability and quality, you really have a strong hand. Really amazing how Apple can make people massively line up for something that will be in abundance in the months after its first release.
# on July 14, 2008 11:55 AM, Ron Tolido said:
@Mark: and that is exactly the point, isn't it? Usefulness is the basics: if that's not okay - if you are not at least on par - nothign will help you. But then, on top of that, I think just a few well-chosen 'cool' features will touch the user base much more than an extensive 'check-box driven' feature list.