The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

1.11. Only a Fool ...

With the exception of some highly publicized foul-ups by Microsoft, most consumer software releases are nonevents. By the time a new piece of software or a new device containing a new piece of software reaches you, it is usually safe to assume that it will work pretty much as advertised.

Unless you are really unlucky, getting a new cell phone up and running does not require a lot of effort. You figure out which friends, relatives, and coworkers to put in your contact list, you choose your ring tones, you change the wallpaper, and you're good to go.

The situation is only slightly different in the commercial world, where most software applications either function properly right out of the box or require relatively simple modifications to function properly.

The picture changes at the enterprise level, where hundreds of software applications must work in constant harmony to sustain the enormous needs of a large organization or business.

Again, with the exception of a few spectacular hiccups, most enterprise software applications run smoothly and uneventfully for many years.

And that is the problem right there.

Enterprise computing applications are so complex that when they are running smoothly, only a fool would try to modify them. Even if you manage to convince the CIO that a major modification is absolutely necessary to achieve a significant business objective, the CIO's IT team will struggle furiously to resist anything but modest and mostly superficial changes ...