I was reading an article yesterday, from an interview with Steve Balmer. It was about Microsoft’s direction and its competitors (in particular FireFox, Google and Linux). One comment stood out:
Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features.
This to me showed how “off the ball” Microsoft are!
Now before I go on let me say the following. I hate seeing Micro$oft. I am not an Apple or Linux fanboy, in fact I would go as far to say I really don’t care of MacOS that much. Yes I really like the iPhone interface, but would never buy one thanks to having to have iTunes to activate the thing. So I use a Windows Mobile device. I’ve used Ubuntu and think it’s alright, but actually I honestly prefer Windows. I love the xbox. So I’m not Microsoft bashing here.
There now I’ve said that, back to the quote. In particular this sentence “But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features.”
My response as per the title, no, no, no, who asked for that? I don’t want more features, in fact I want less. I want my browser to be small and very fast and just let me browse. If IE8 had come out and was barebones fast as you like, I would probably have switched back from FireFox!
This got me thinking about lawyers and legal software and the same applies. Just give them the features they require. Make the next release of the Document Management System, the CRM system, the finance system, the template management system, the digital dictation system leaner.
Take Word or any Word Processor. How much functionality does the average lawyer need? Most law firms will also have multiple add ins to provide more functionality. The integration with the add ins should be slicker and removing of the unnecessary proprietary options easier.
Most people want to get on with the task in hand, the software should help that both quickly and easily. So with the browser, it should help me browse, end of! The DMS should help be file and retrieve my documents. Outlook should let me manage my email. etc etc
So no more new features please unless it’s going to make the task I’m using the software for easier and faster!
Oooh, good rant! I do agree with you though. We recently built a CRM system in-house and made a conscious decision to keep it really simple in so far as cutting out features that we had already built at the beta test stage. The result has been a better take up than we’ve had in the past and people have continued to use it. Sure, we’ll add new features gradually as the culture accepts what it has now and as the business needs it. But in general, simple = good.
I don’t disagree that it is a good idea to keep things simple. As I think about a future upgrade to Office 2007/2010 I am considering very seriously customizing the ribbons down as much as possible and targeting custom ribbons to specific users. At the same time, keeping things simple means that you might lock away features that someone could take advantage of. It is a tight line to make sure you have the correct balance.
As for browsers, the number one reason I read for people not switching to Chrome is the lack of features, most specifically the lack of extensibility. I seems that many people think that more is indeed better.