The problem with growth

Large software companies have a problem, and I’m part of it. I’m a problem for them because I won’t automatically update to the latest and, according to marketing, greatest version of their software.  For major photo editing, I still use Photoshop CSII. For web development work, I divide my time between BBEdit and some version of Dreamweaver so old it doesn’t have numbers associated with it (MX, maybe?). It also tells me it comes from Macromedia. I haven’t updated this software because I haven’t needed to.  And more and more because I don’t want to.

Merlin does a good job of explaining why.

So far, I haven’t been able to exhaust CSII’s feature set. There might be something in the newer versions that would make my life easier, but I don’t miss it because I don’t know about it.  And there’s nothing I’ve tried and failed to do based on the limitations in CSII. Ditto Dreamweaver MX.  It might be that I’m not a heavy-duty user (I’m not), but I’d wager that most things crammed into—what’re we at now, CSIV? Most things crammed into the latest versions don’t need to be there.

If I may, I’d like to detour to the world of video games for a moment because I know people who work the trenches there, and I don’t know anyone in software development.

Imagine working on a game like Madden. You have thirty-two teams, a handful of stars, and a few features that must be included in the game to provide a good experience: hand-off, forward pass, defensive play selection. Many of those features have been in since day one, and most others since some iteration on the Genesis. What’s a game company to do?  They update graphics, make sure players’ statistics reflect their abilities as best you can, and then what? The review market demands innovation.  Whether or not it grossly affects gameplay is immaterial. Whether or not the folks at home on their couches want it is immaterial. The review market propels game purchases, especially for something like Madden, which has a new version every year, like clockwork. Thus companies feel they need to bow to the review market. And here we arrive at the real reason behind shitty software.

EA needs to sell N copies of the latest version to meet their growth projections and keep their shareholders happy. Adobe needs to sell N updates of their Creative Suite, and Microsoft must sell N copies or licenses for new Office software. Folks like the Dailide brothers don’t need to please shareholders (not yet, anyway). There’s no fat white dude in a suit wearing Euro-loafters and thin socks breathing on them to generate N sales in the next quarter, and no high-priced marketing team rounding up focus groups to justify cramming in additional features.  They have the freedom to grow at their own rate, in a manner that’s organic and small-scale. And more and more I find myself opening Pixelmator to do simple photo editing.

Large companies like Adobe and Microsoft become hindered by their own successes. They achieve a certain market saturation and then can’t meet growth projections with new users of existing products. Everyone who needed CSII already has it.  So they have to “innovate,” and often do so to the detriment of usability.

I also don’t want to bang on software developers. I would imagine most developers at Adobe get orders from on high and, after a brief meeting in which they voice their concerns and a number of lunches where they bitch about the things they’ve been asked to include, then do what’s asked of them.

I haven’t used MS Word on the Mac in ages and couldn’t tell you what its problems are. I have used Scrivener to pound out two novels (one shitty, one pretty good, pending revisions), and keep a copy of NeoOffice on hand to open student papers. I use Lightroom2 to update and manage my photographs because it’s easy, easily accepts plugins and doesn’t lock me out of my raw files like Aperture. Would I buy a new version of PhotoShop for any reason?  Maybe, if that reason was compelling enough (babysitting would be a nice addition). I will buy a Lightroom upgrade when it comes out, especially if they make the program more efficient. I don’t want to keep buying RAM just so I can run one blubbery program.

But the real problem is that I don’t think Adobe cares. I know Microsoft doesn’t. If they cared, they wouldn’t need that team of difficulty experts to make sure nothing is too easy for end users (I installed IE 8 this morning). But each is too big at this point to suffer competition.  Adobe is, anyway; Apple is much too dependent on Adobe to offer any real competition. And Microsoft? They’re so gigantic, they might be in competition with themselves and not even know it.

So what to do?  I suppose folks like Merlin can continue to beat the drum for software excellence, and hopefully enough people will listen. Until then, maybe each of us should demand other software. And not those few who are working from home offices. Rather, those of us in corporate environments, places where major licence purchases really affect the bottom line of a company like Adobe. And let it be known we’re doing it, too. Not in a nasty way, but in a way that speaks to the shadowy, accounting-department hearts of these large companies. Because only then will these companies really listen.

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