Smartsheet.com Blog

I think Robert Scoble said it best. “Yesterday someone challenged me to ‘say something useful’ in Twitter. Has anyone said anything useful in Twitter?”

Will Twitter be crowned the next victor in the messaging category, joining the ranks of e-mail, IM, and RSS? For all its coolness, ease of use, plugged in feeling it delivers - I sure as hell hope not.

Denouncing Twitter as the latest affront to personal and corporate productivity may be a bit dramatic – but after some consideration, I think not. Ok, it hasn’t gotten in anybody’s kitchen with the same flair as a Jeremiah Wright...but it may end up causing some serious damage nonetheless. If Twitter succeeds in capturing the minds of corporate users, we should all buckle up for a bouncy ride. Well, actually, don’t worry about buckling; the ride is going to be mighty slow as our productivity slows to a crawl.

Heavyweight fights seem to get most of the attention. Maybe that's why the press won't let go of its desire to promote the Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs fight.

My take - it won't be a fight worth watching. It won't be a 2nd round knockout. There won't even be a unanimous decision for Microsoft or Google. In fact, there will be many Software as a Service (SaaS) providers who realize success in bringing to market high value services. It will only accelerate as traditional and online software providers make it easier for customers to combine offerings.

In his Forbes technology opinion piece titled ’Tough Customers', Daniel Lyons is the latest to reference the much hyped Microsoft vs. Google apps battle. The article focuses on Apple's quest to gain share in the corporate mobile computing space - at the expense of Windows Mobile & RIMM. He compares Apple and Google in their pursuit of the lucrative prize – the corporate user. He suggests that it won't be easy for Apple by remarking that Google’s foray into the application market hasn’t been successful. "Have you heard of any big companies that have ditched Microsoft Office and switched to the free Google Apps? Me neither."

We've all heard the old saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it too". It's rolls off the tongue so much more easily than, "You can't have two things which are incompatible".

A few things in life are absolutes. Most everything else, even if broadly accepted, is open to challenge.

Seems to me that in software recently, the proverbial 'can't have your cake...' is being applied to web application design left and right. The number of ultra-simple tools with narrow feature sets reflects a mindset of: 'you can't have your simple application and features too'. Aiming to satisfy the perceived needs of the masses, designers are quick to reduce feature counts in the name of achieving simplicity and adoption.

I had the chance to give a brief update on Smartsheet's progress at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View last week.

It was good to see this year's new companies present as well. Interesting products. Smart people. Similar probing from the expert panelists as last year:

- 'How do you plan on selling your service?'
- 'Is what you have any different from company xyz who has been doing this for the past 2 years?'
- 'Does your idea constitute a company, product, or feature?'

Don Dodge, whose blog I quite like, also attended the conference. He poses a good question in a recent post - 'does your company sell vitamins or pain killers?'. He encourages young companies to chart the course to becoming a pain killer. Don suggests that if you are not marketing against a well defined list of real pains...that you might find yourself scratching your head wondering why customers aren't coming through the door.

Microsoft yesterday threw a counter punch to Google Sites. Office Live Workspaces was launched with much fanfare. You could almost hear the students and non-profits around the nation shout ‘let FREEdom reign’. Peek past the well orchestrated announcements and blog posts and recognize the old adage, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

To realize value from Office Live Workspaces, you need to run Microsoft Office, ‘preferably Office 2007’. So college senior, come join the ‘free’ party – but don’t forget your $399 (Office w/ Outlook) for the Microsoft Office cover charge.

Google search does it right. One page, one search box, one call to action. The result: mass usage and relevance. It’s nearly impossible to get wrong. My father, at 71, can search for the local Thai restaurant as well as I. How many technologies obliterate those pesky learning curves forced upon us by youth or old age? I relate as strongly to Google’s design principle of ‘Keep it Simple’ as I do to their ‘Don’t be Evil’ corporate motto.

Unfortunately, the beloved ‘Keep it Simple’ philosophy is now officially under fire.

It’s no secret that Google has been pilfering Microsoft’s talent for some time now. They’ve even opened a megaplex in Microsoft’s backyard (Kirkland WA) to grease the skids for all the hard chargers yearning for the creativity and growth that eludes the slower moving giant. Did the poaching backfire? Was the Microsoft talent drain a brilliantly placed Trojan Horse? In my cursory review of Google Sites, I couldn’t help but see Microsoft’s fingerprint: Proliferation of acquired and developed apps. Making it hard to sign up for the service. (My God, you can’t even sign up using your Gmail account. WHAT??) And more concepts than fewer. Simple plus simple plus simple, does not equal simple. Taking 48 simple web forms and packaging them together does not a simple app make.

To say that my wife and I share the same interest in the software business would be a bit of a stretch. It would also be a bit of a stretch to believe that I'm alone in this camp. While the curiosity and passion to achieve the optimal balance between utility, value, and user satisfaction is not shared between Jaimee and me, I must admit that she and a few of the other Smartsheet spouses have been invaluable in recent weeks. They have something that we at the business can't emulate - a less biased perspective. Our extended Smartsheet team (the spouses) have proven to be an asset as we gauge reaction to 'Haymaker' designs (codename for our major release slated for Q2 '08)

I am reading the latest news on the Microsoft bid for Yahoo. The New York Times reports that “Google emerged over the weekend with plans to play the role of spoiler.” But a spoiler for whom? In the cloudy world of paid search, a Microsoft/Yahoo union may provide more options for a market currently dominated by Google. Today, it is widely known that it is tough to duplicate Google’s paid search results on any other search engine. This gives Google the ability to quickly add new concepts into their algorithm such as the quality score introduced a few years ago. Google’s own site tells marketers that position is based on a variety of elements, including quality, bid rate and potentially hundreds of other factors.

What’s worse? Hearing the PC shut down just as you remember those two items you had to add to the project list or feeling your heart race as you come close to trading paint with the BMW in the neighboring lane because you want to see if you correctly entered the task into your iPhone? OK, the latter is far worse…but both cause my blood pressure to uptick.

Once you’ve experienced the satisfaction of knowing that you and your team are on the same page and that nothing has fallen through the cracks, the pain of being out of synch is more acute and, sometimes, leads to impaired judgment – like typing while driving.

Ever been in a long distance relationship? They're not easy...or at least they weren't when I was in college in the late 80's. Lack of communication made it tough. There was no IM, no Facebook, and no MySpace. There were no pocket-size cell phones and e-mail was a novelty. The tool of choice was the dorm room telephone and, with the genesis of 'unlimited night and weekend minutes' a decade away, you could amass a pretty decent monthly phone bill if you weren't careful.

It's different for folks in relationships today. They can wake up with a call via skype, send a few IMs around noon, see each other's updates on Facebook in the afternoon, and finish the day with an e-mail and a video chat. While the ability to be in near constant contact might help keep the flame alive in relationships, staccato like interaction can quickly morph a productive day in the office into an interrupt-driven funk.