Progress?

My FileEngine product was the outgrowth of my frustration with increased functionality being peddled as improvement. We deal with lots of attorneys who still use Word Perfect. Truth be told, they'd probably still be using Version 5.1 or 6.0 if they could find systems that ran DOS!

Well, a recent post by Steve Lohr in the NY Times: Tech Payoff for Companies Remains Elusive, Study Finds, sums it up nicely. The 'more is more' philosophy just isn't paying off. We knew that - now we have proof.

Steve did an article titled: Tracking the World’s Appetite for Innovation in January 2008 that anticipated the conclusions of this study. We just don't want anymore. We have enough. Go away.

Now it would be easy to accuse me of being a Luddite, and I'm not so sure I'd be offended. I'd defend some advances in consumer technology...it's nice to carry books & music with you on an iPod or Kindle. And improved TV resolution is appreciated. But 200+ channels of crap in HD isn't progress. But how is it the government's responsibility to assure anybody with rabbit ears on their TVs can get a digital converter? Did they subsidize their upgrade to a DVD player from VHS when Blockbuster stopped carrying 'tapes'?

The real suffering is being felt by businesses who need to withstand a torrent of SPAM (or pay to have it filtered,) constantly worry about Internet borne threats and attacks that sneak into their network (and pay big bucks to innoculate systems or have them de-loused,) and worse: struggle with employees that consider broadband at the office just another entertainment option.