Business On Software

Today I realised that the days of installable accounting software is definitely over. Conclusively. Let me tell you the story in all it’s angst and frustrating detail.

I was recently engaged by a client to do some data conversion work on their Quickbooks Premier system. Sounded easy enough, so we took on the assignment thinking it would be a simple job taking up a day or so of our time. Basic research on the internet showed that we could download a trial edition of the QODBC driver in order to get that job done without any cost to us in terms of software licensing.

With most other database systems, just downloading the ODBC driver is normally enough to get you access to the data files without having to install the entire application package. Not so with Quickbooks.

Our client dutifully did a backup within Quickbooks and sent us the QBB file to look at. This is when we first realised that the QBB backup file is not like a standard ZIP or any other backup file. There is no way to get to the data without restoring it, and the only way we could restore this data was to have a working copy of Quickbooks Premier.

So off we went to the Quickbooks site to download a copy. This is where I was staggered to see the many many different versions of Reckon software, and even when we narrowed it down to Quickbooks Premier, there were 5 editions of Quickbooks Premier to choose from! A phone call to our client elicited the correct version, so I downloaded a 400MB installation file and installed it. Another hour or so wasted.

Ok, now I fired up Quickbooks Premier, and chose to restore my clients file. It started off looking promising, but then it asked us for a username and password to complete converting the file. Not really a bad thing – after all, this sort of information should be secured. We called our client again and got an operator level password (they didn’t want to give out their Admin password – understandably).

Success? No! It gets to the end of the conversion process and then throws us a message saying that the version of Quickbooks is newer than the version I have installed. This was the install I just downloaded from their website this morning. Today. And it is out of date according to them. The dialog box says I have to install SP2 of Quickbooks Premier.

I click on the link to download the patch, and I am shown a web page with the available patches for Quickbooks Premier. There is no SP2 on the list, however there is a ‘Service Pack 1′ shown which is dated June last year. I go to select that, but do you think I am shown a download link? No, I have to sign in with a Reckon Customer ID and PIN code. Nothing is simple with Reckon, is it?

Another phone call to my client, and I get this information as well. So I log in, and download the 15MB patch and install it. It turns out that this is the correct SP2 patch they spoke about, despite everything on the download site calling this ‘Service Pack 1′. Get your terminology right Reckon!

I go to install the patch. Bomb! Quickbooks tells me that the software must be registered before I can install a patch on it. Luckily, all I need is the same Customer ID and PIN to register so I do so. Second time around, it lets me install the patch.

Hooray, now the data conversion works OK and I can open the data file in Quickbooks Premier SP2.

Now for the ODBC part. I set up a DSN pointing to the data I need in QODBC, but when I try to test the connection, another error message saying that I cannot get access to their data files. Some research time on Google shows me that I need to be logged into Quickbooks as an Admin user the first time I run the ODBC driver in order to get access. No other user login will work, it has to be Admin.

A third phone call to the client yields this information reluctantly. I sign in as Admin, then hook up the ODBC, and we are away. Finally.

Did I mention that all the above steps wasted practically a whole day? In amongst the rounds of downloading and installing software and patches, I reflected that there must be a better, easier way of doing this.

By the way, my own company now uses Xero for our accounting. This is a totally web based system. We started using this system in Jun 2009, and to date there have been at least 2 major updates to the system that I know of. Do you know what I had to do to install the updates? Nothing. It all happened whilst I was asleep. No downloading. No patching. No registering. No Googling for answers on esoteric error messages. Just pure bliss.

Goodbye installed software – I knew thee well…

Photo by Anna_Greece via Flickr

Joel Spolsky mentions that developers who try and fill a hole in a particular vendors offering risk having their products being made obsolete by the vendor themselves.  He cites 15 iPhone apps that have been made obsolete by Apple with the latest release of the iPhone 3Gs.

As a developer who has been creating products that ‘piggy back’ onto another vendors major software offering, we have had first hand experience of this situation.  On a regular basis, we see the major vendor release software updates or features that either:

a) is exactly the same as a feature in our add on

b) breaks a particular feature in our add on

c) prevents us from proceeding with out own product roadmap for future enhancements

To be honest, I don’t believe that any of it is done be our vendor out of mean spiritness, or an intention to directly hurt us.  Because they are a large, lumbering company, they just plod along on their merry path, following their own product roadmap with scant regard for what us ‘little guys’ are doing.  Such is life, for a Remora software company such as ours.

Joel says that developers such as us are effectively trying to snatch pennies from the path of an oncoming steamroller, and he says that add-on developers would be lucky to get 1% of the total vendors market.  True, to a certain extent, but I think there are still ways that we can get a good outcome from such a situation.

I think that if we can differentiate our product offerings enough, people will still spend the money to buy ours because it is either easier to use, or has better features.  Note: I don’t say more features, just better features.

To go back to the iPhone for a while – I purchased the iTalk application by Griffin Software for my wife’s iPhone so she could record conversations with her mum for later possible publication in a book.  iTalk is a great tool, with easy syncing to her PC (without having to use iTunes) plus the ability to change the recording quality (and thus file sizes).  I don’t think that the built in voice recorder in the iPhone 3Gs can do this (please correct me if I am wrong).

To me, the two features that I highlighted above will still mean that I would be willing to pay for iTalk over the built in software.  Differentiation is still the key.  The vendor will always have to try and build their software according to their grand plan, i.e. in this case, Apple can only make their voice recorder sync using iTunes.  To do otherwise would be to risk a major cashcow of theirs.  Third party vendors like iTalk who can break this stranglehold can still win the battle.

A recent case of a friends facebook account getting hacked inspired my latest posting to CloudAve’s blog.  Check it out and let me know what your thoughts are on this case, and how Facebook could have handled things better.

Update: Read Mark’s own account of his Facebook hack on his own blog.

Image from SoulSense (Oscar Ordenes) via Flickr

It has only been a couple of days playing with the Windows 7 public beta, but I have tears in my eyes.  Tears of relief, that this debacle called Vista can finally be put down and out of its misery.  Microsoft has finally hit it out of the park with this one!

What is different?  Well, visually there is nothing really new to speak of, but I am finding the new taskbar style a lot better, and I like the thumbnail previews of open windows as you slide your mouse around the taskbar.  As someone who has worn out the [Windows Key-D] combination on his keyboard, I love the fact that when you move the mouse to the lower right corner of the screen, ALL your open windows are made transparent so you can see the desktop background and your little applets etc.

The biggest change I see is the speed.  Speed!  Things are finally positively snappy around here.  Click on anything and the windows blitz onto the screen.  No staring at an hourglass or an empty frame for 10 seconds or so as I do now with Vista.  Even opening My Network Places which used to take upwards of 20 seconds now happens near instantly.  This finally feels like a Formula 1 racer zipping around the track, instead of an overloaded WWII Bedford truck chugging around a mud track.

It used to be with Vista, I would get an idea or inspiration, but by the time I tried opening Notepad, or a new Outlook email or any other simple program, 30 seconds or more would go past, and I would rapidly lose my train of thought, as the operating system took up all my time and attention, instead of doing what operating systems should do, which is get the heck out of the way and let me get on with my job!

My biggest question is – Why could they not achieve this with Vista in the first place?  I mean, nothing has been taken out here.  It is still the same underlying OS, but it runs rings around ‘original’ Vista.  I tend to agree with Zoli Erdos that Microsoft should really be giving Windows7 to all current Vista owners and call it ‘Vista Final’.  The letter of apology to every user would also be a nice touch, but I think we have a snowflake’s chance in hell of either two scenarios happening!

Welcome to 2009!  Apologies for the slow rate of posting over the past couple of weeks, but several projects due before Christmas kept me ‘heads down’ in the programming cave for a while.

Well, the big news to start the year off is that Microsoft will be releasing the Windows 7 Beta out to the general public today.  Being 12 hours ahead of the curve here makes it a tough wait, but I am hoping to get my hands on the Beta copy by the end of today.  Once I do, I will definitely be blogging my experiences with this new OS on here.  Everyone at the office here knows about my abject hatred for Vista, so they are hoping that my experiences with Win7 will be a lot less vocal.

You can try and be one of the first 2.5 million registrants for the public beta at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ although I have to warn you that you will have to stand in line behind me.

Here is another article on the upgrade, and here is a different take on the situation, with this correspondent hinting that Windows 7 should be marketed as the ‘final upgrade’ for Vista!

Update 11/01: After a 24 hour delay in geting the Beta due to ‘heavy load’ on the MS network, it is finally available to the general public.  I have just finished downloading my copy and getting my keys and will report on my first impressions of Windows7 after I finish upgrading one of the office PC’s.  Definitely a lot of bad press and reactions across the world at the perceived lack of preparedness on Microsoft’s behalf, although I think a lot of the frustration was due to the late hour!

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was lamenting the demise of iwantsandy, and was looking straight down the barrel of returning to my previous, disorganised life – but today, I hear that GMail have incorporated tasks into their service, which made me sit up and take notice.

Still early days yet (I literally heard about it on the blogsphere about 5 minutes ago) and I havent had the chance to totally test it out.  But if I can email a task to my GMail account, and have it pop back to remind me later then I think I am at least part way to getting back some of the functionality that I miss with Sandy.

I will try and post more here as I become familiar with the new features.

I have been talking a lot on here about having a dashboard to get a quick overview of your businesses key performance indicators.  I never really thought about having a personal dashboard though, until now.  I have come across a site called Pageonce, which will give you all your critical information such as your bank balances, favourite websites, social networking profiles (i.e. Facebook, MySpace) all on the one, easy to navigate screen.

Their service has been optimised for the iPhone, but they have a web interface for it as well.  I must remember to grab my wife’s iPhone and create an account to give it a whirl…if she will let me.

Note: This was a guest posting of mine that appeared at CloudAve earlier this week.  CloudAve is a great new blog that has been specifically designed to bring you all the news about Software As A Service (SaaS) and ‘Cloud Computing’ in one place.

I am always on the lookout for free or low cost web services that will help me (and my clients) to better organise their day, and to be more productive.

About a year ago, I stumbled upon a free service called ‘I Want Sandy’, which, in a nutshell, is an online virtual assistant.  The way it works is, I can send Sandy an email asking her to remind me to do something or to remember any pertinent detail, and she would do it quickly and efficiently in the background.

For example, I could send her an email saying “Remind me to call Paul to arrange lunch next Thursday”, and lo and behold, next Thursday morning, I would get a friendly reminder email from Sandy to do just that.  Sandy could also remember phone numbers, appointments and various other things.  She had a Twitter interface so you could use it on your phone, and a Jott interface as well so you could even speak your requests to her.  And all this came at NO cost!

Well, unfortunately Rael Dornfest, the creator of IWantSandy, is shutting down the service as of 8th December.  That is less than 2 weeks away.  Rael has been offered a job within Twitter, and they have absorbed all his IP in Sandy, and another web service that he offers.

This is a sad day for Web2.0 and SaaS in general.

Firstly, let me point out that I have nothing against Rael personally or professionally.  He is obviously a brilliant designer and programmer, which is exemplified by the elegant and useful service that he built.  The dismay that I feel is moreso in relation to the betrayal of trust that Rael has shown to his user base.

IWantSandy was always promoted as a ‘life changing’ tool, and an indispensable one at that.  And judging by the comments on the IWansSandy support site, it certainly was so for many, many people.  Unfortunately, the new owners, Twitter (yes, the people who regularly bring you the ‘fail whale‘), have not committed to keeping the service alive.  In fact, there has been no definitive roadmap given by any party as to the IWantSandy service, other than that it will be permanently taken offline in a week and a bit.

The biggest problem I see here, is that the way this whole thing was handled has now tarnished any trust that the general community would have had in Web2.0 companies in general, especially the smaller, relatively ‘unknown’ ones.  This whole saga is going to make it harder for other SaaS companies to convince their current and potential users to trust in them staying around for the long haul.

A lot of people are defending this decision, along the lines of “Well, it was a FREE service, so there is no commitment from the site owners to hang around losing money”.  Ahem, I have to respectfully disagree there.  I would have gladly paid for Sandy’s services (and judging by the comments on GetSatisfaction, so would many other users).  I never saw any attempt by Rael to monetise his service or get revenue in other ways.

One could also argue that GMail is a free service – and what would the uproar be if Google said they were going to shut down GMail in two weeks?  At least with online email, there are several other providers that you could turn to, but from what I can see, IWantSandy is a pretty unique service and no one else seems to offer the same sort of functionality (yet).

In my view you cannot promote a service as a useful, everyday tool, and then revoke all that functionality and convenience on a whim.  People have already bought into the value that this tool gives them.  To me personally, there was great value in the convenience and simple email interface of the system.  This is value that I would have had no hesitation in paying real dollars for.

I cannot understand the business logic behind Twitter purchasing a standout excellent service with a loyal following, and an extremely strong, personal brand, (did you notice how I constantly refer to this service as ‘Sandy’ or ’she’? – I never do that with any other service I use) and then shelving it with really no idea what to do with it.

A hell of a lot of work has gone into building a persona and positive feel about this service, and I would really like to know why Rael didn’t just sell the IP to another Web2.0 company like Remember The Milk or 37signals, or even a new player on the block, who could have taken the service and kept it free, or monetised it – anything, rather than just ‘putting it down’.

But now I am afraid that Sandy has got the sack – another victim of the economic downturn…or was it corporate greed?

I’m going to miss her…

UPDATE 28/11: Looks like Rael has extended the deadline before he shuts the service down.  Exact dates haven’t been given as yet.

UPDATE 29/11: More postings on the closure of IWS can be found here, here and here

The British government has just announced that the VAT rate in the country will drop from 17.5% to 15.0% in order to combat their worsening economy and hopefully kick start consumer spending.

The main problem is that they have only given local businesses about a weeks notice to make the changes.

Given that I was right in the trenches during the changeover to a Goods & Services tax here in Australia in 1999/2000, I can appreciate the implications of this.  While a change in the tax rate will not be as drastic as a change in the whole underlying tax system, I have still seen too many software systems where the tax rate is ‘built in’ as a fixed constant and is not user editable.

Most reputable accounting systems will let the user just go to an options screen and change a ‘Tax Rate’ field or change a line in a tax data file somewhere, but users of old systems may not even know where to find these system option screens.

Here’s hoping that the Australian Govt. does not see the need to change out GST rate from 10%.  Ben Kepes over at Cloud Avenue has an article on how online accounting systems will handle this change with far greater flexibility that traditional software systems.

You might know that a vast portion of my work constitutes the selling of my time to my clients.  From support calls, to research, to programming and other diagnostic tasks – most of our business income is from time.

And time, as you know, is the one finite resource that everyone has.  It is also one of the hardest to track, and that is not just because I am a professional procrastinator, or like getting distracted by nice shiny things on the web whilst supposing to do work!

Over a year ago, I came across a nifty little tool called SlimTimer.  I actually came across this during an online discussion with it’s developer, Richard White, who is a brilliant interface designer and Ruby on Rails guru.  I was trying to learn Ruby and…well, that is another story that is outside the scope of this particular blog.

Enough to say, that I signed on for the SlimTimer service back then, and then promptly forgot about it.  About a week ago, I rediscovered it again, and decided to start using it properly.

I must say that I am very impressed with the service.  It basically runs in a tiny, unobtrusive browser window, and lets you create tasks on the fly and start stop a little timer to record just how long you are spending on those tasks.  You can then log onto the SlimTimer website to run various reports and adjust your timesheets so that you know just how much to bill your clients.

The basic service is free.  I’ll say that again in case you missed it – Free!  That is ZERO cost.  Apparently there is a premium service available which lets you backup your data or export to Excel, but get this – YOU get to nominate how much to pay each month of the premium service.  Certainly an interesting concept, and I will be keeping my eye on this innovative pricing scheme to see how it all goes.

SlimTimer is highly recommended for anyone who needs to see where their time is going, and for analysing just how you spend your day.  Warning – you will be very surprised!

Heads Up: In the next few weeks, I will be talking about another fantastic website, also by Richard White.  Currently, I am in the process of setting everything up, and once I have tested it with my clients, I will report back on my findings.