A reflection on the speed of changes in computing
Every year, as everyone knows, computers come out more and more powerful and cheaper. The machines purchased today have power at least twice as high as the devices of one year ago. Always the same mechanisms will have half the power of those that will come out in one year and so on in time.
But is this power perceived by people? Do we have an advantage in changing computers every year? Well, of course, the answer is no, because the hardware improves every year, but not the software and neither the end-users.
It takes years to write a program, for the simple reason that it is written by people anyway. People who, of course, follow human rhythms, therefore can never make the most of new computers. To do that, they would have to rewrite programs every time to use the new potentials and, of course, that’s impossible.
Why should you change your management system?
It takes time to handle a program: you have to learn how to use it, make it yours, make it your working tool and not an obvious waste of time («I did it faster with the old one»).
Talking about data management software, we can state that users follow the philosophy of «If it does its job, then it’s okay», so much so that they know it very well.
Changing a program so rooted in the company system can cause such a high shock, that the motivations for doing so are few and always radical, e.g.:
«The Software House no longer exists or do not update that program.»
«The computer has broken and the software does not work on a new machine.»
«The person who used the software resigned or retired.»
«The current situation does not justify a serious lack or deficiency of the program.»
Whether the company is facing these events, then it changes the management system against its will.
From the point of view of software programmers
Of course, this mechanism also compromises those who develop programs.
In their hearts, programmers wonder why, after all their efforts, they should continue to update and modify the software if the end-user is fine with the old version. Therefore, they rely on their investment since updating their solutions with new technologies has a very high cost of time and people.
Even if the machines run faster and the world changes, their customers do not have these problems, therefore they do nothing but updating the tax side because they know that one day they will close or have to innovate.
But even at different rates than the speed of computers, the user sees that the world changes and begins asking “obvious” things for him:
«Why can’t I see my customers’ data from my phone, instead I can see my emails?»
«Why do I have to use Excel to place an order from the customer, send it to the office and have it copied by the secretary?»
The frontier of mobile solutions
Why can’t the developers of management systems keep up with new computers? Mobile technology is more recent than the program they developed, therefore they should rewrite the system or modify it.
To do so, they should add an interpreter program between the management software and the mobile version for the data exchange between the two. Otherwise, they should find another programmer specialized in the mobile and make him make the reduced version of his management system.
Instead, other developers suggest their customers look for solutions from others since they cannot take on this expensive request.
The management programs which came out less than 5 years ago are usually developed as web sites so that you can view and use them on your smartphone (of course if there is an internet connection).
Nios4 was also built to address this problem; indeed, you can create the interfaces and operations of your system and use it on your phone and exchange information with your software. This way, the company maintains the current technology in use and benefits from mobile data.
If you want more information, please contact us at help@d-one.info
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