Functionality is dead

Erik Keller at AMR continues to hit the mark, in my opinion. In a research note entitled, "Functionality is dead", he makes the case that what software buyers are really interested in these days is not more functionality that they probably won't be used anyway but ease of use.

[W]hile technological and functional requirements are important, so too are applications that will be embraced by real people. One of the largest problems that enterprise applications have is that they are too hard to use. For such applications, if users can avoid them to get their job done, history has shown that they will. This truth has manifested itself in countless enterprise applications being used the bare minimum, which has made it harder for IT organizations to show a positive return on their investment.

Keller points to simple applications such as Microsoft's sales force automation product and salesforce.com as examples of simple, easy-to-use applications, especially when compared to complex CRM products such as Siebel's and PeopleSoft's.

I've often said that a simple application that actually gets used is far better than a sophisticated application that sits on the shelf.

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