The little picture

Nick Gruen writes in his Rough Type blog about the fat guy who can't get his web 2.0 software to work. Salesforce decided to upgrade their software and now it won't synch with Outlook.

I'm not a fan of Nick's blog. I'm more a little picture person than a big picture guy, I'm more interested in the small guy's application of new technology. Like my post yesterday of how a three person office uses Google Maps.

In fact, I'm such a small picture guy not seeing the wood for the trees is not my problem, I'm fighting my way through the underbrush.

So it's interesting to see Nick stoop to my level for a change. And he's absolutely right, the Software-as-a-Service guys need to consider the little stuff as much as the big stuff.

Where I disagree is that synching with Outlook is not little; it's a major problem. Breaking Outlook synchronisation is ridiculous.

I'll bet plenty of corporate IT admins have been sweating while the Chief Executive whatever screams at them about this very issue. Whether Salesforce like it or not, Outlook is the established leader in the PIM field and they have to deal with it.

The danger with letting technology people run an operation is they see the technology as being an end in itself. This is why Linux doesn't get traction in the mass market and why software developers tell small business to ditch Outlook.

In the real world IT is a means to improve productivity: The computers; Internet; Web 2.0 apps and everything else is there to help ordinary people do stuff. When the computer gets in the way of doing things then the computer has to go.

As the fat guy says in his blog,

"...Oh, and I’ll be going back to the open-source free crap for making cool pie-charts out of an SQL database (which my dog could probably write) for the quarterly investor reports. Maybe even Google docs. Maybe even nothing more than a yellow legal pad and some markers."

There's the message for everyone in the IT industry; whether you are a high falutin', macbook toting, Web 2.0 big picture guy or just the mom and pop corner computer store. If your products aren't delivering what the customers want, they will go elsewhere.