The Magic of Software

Many times I have asked myself what got me interested in the software industry and why it did not interest me as much when I was a student of Engineering. The answer is fuzzy affected by many factors like, the kind of software available in the mid to late 80s, what was available at the Engineering college I got admission to and also how much I knew about software and what it can do.

My first introduction to software was in 9th Grade, when we were brought to the 'computer lab', which was the proud new possession of my school at Jabalpur. A BBC machine connected to a TV and after few months when time came for the annual science fair, our 'computer sir' help write one of the first software program that I still remember. It was stored in the cassette of a tape recorder and all it did was drew 3D circles floating in the center of the TV screen. And I was amazed, and still remember that, though we actually were taught a bunch of other programs in BASIC, can't really recall anything else.

So why do I remember that circles on the air or what made me take up CAD and STAAD, the computer aided design as my thesis for Civil Engineering Finals, is connected to the question I started this blog entry with, 'what is it that got me interested in software?'

In line with this, begs to ask the question why did iPhone take the market away from Nokia, though Nokia or Motorolla phones had more features. Why does a 2.5yr old kid like using iPad and not any of the other computing options in the market today.

While at Microsoft World Partner Conference last week, one of the booth in front was from a well know so called open source CRM company called SugarCRM, which is going to be another topic of discussion another day, that why do this companies call them self open source when all they are interested in is getting others to bug fix and use there software till they can start selling it commercially. So the line of SugarCRM slides running in loops said one thing that caught my attention, which said something like 'complex process and interface of other CRM software makes it difficult to use'; funny thing is, SugarCRM when you see is as complex and difficult to sue as any of them. Or for that matter other leaders in the market like Salesforce or Netsuite, and the other two present at the exhibition AutoTask and ConnectWise in addition to Dynamics CRM, all have quite difficult to use menu and process flow, like 'Nokia' for hand phones.

So the question or the inspiration that has been going around in my mind for sometime is, what is that magic that Apple brought into iPhone and iPad that others in the industry missed. Admittedly they made a great hardware, but its not the hardware, or not hardware alone that makes the product irresistible, or even kids start using it, its the 'magic of software', the User Experience or UX that makes it different. The transitions, the easy to use functions, the ease of finding what you want with out having to get drowned in 50 other things, the color, the candy like buttons with wonderful sounds, that's what makes it irresistible, the hardware is just there to support doing all that, to think of it the battery actually sucks, cant think of any Nokia phone that would survive at this time with only 1/2 a day worth of battery power.

Yes, the magic of software is in the user experience, not in the complexity of the architecture or codes or even the depth of configurable functions that most software engineers love to brag about. And perhaps the saying of Occam's razor is most applicable for software design and keeping the magic alive for the users. The principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

Yes there is a market for easy to use business software, like easy to use business phone (yes iPhone is now called a business phone, like it or not) and the new Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 also following the principles (I hope so from what I saw at WPC).

So here we are now betting on 'the magic of software' the UX in delivering great user experience and ease through our latest cloud offerings of Xamun, only market can tell how well we got it, so wish us luck and some 'magic'.

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