A Bumpy Ride In The Cadillac Of Software

February 24, 1997

Admit it. You've always wanted a Cadillac.
OK, maybe you didn't, but I always have. Ever since I was a kid and my father pulled up one day driving a midnight blue Cadillac Sedan De Ville--which he let me drive on the weekends--I've been in love with Cadillacs.
__ I'm of the opinion that, no matter what your personal driving preference--economy, family sedan, RV, mini-van, sports, or motorcycle--it's the rare American who doesn't maintain a certain decadent, lustful place in his or her heart for a top-of-the-line, fully equipped Caddy. After all, who doesn't want to drive the very best? And the Cadillac is GM's finest (sorry Corvette fans).
__ So it was with great anticipation that I took delivery of a 1997 Cadillac Seville STS. Base price: $44,995, plus a $665 destination charge. Throw in the Astroroof ($1,550), electronic compass mirror ($100), heated front seats ($225), 12-CD, mega-bass stereo system ($1,513), and the voice-activated, no-hands cellular phone (don't ask), and the final tab breaks the $50,000 barrier.
__ It's safe to say the Cadillac Seville STS represents the epitome of American luxury car design. In computer industry terms, it's the Microsoft Office of the auto world. Beautiful to look at, powerful 300 horsepower, 32-valve Northstar V8 engine under the hood, stuffed to the brim with every ergonomic creature comfort known to man, all fully integrated with the overall driving experience.
__ Just turn the key (or, the case of Office 97, just click Install) and go where you want to, in total comfort. Or so the dream sequence goes. Imagine my dismay when the Caddy's computer-controlled enhancements failed to recall my programmed personal settings for two drivers. At the touch of my keyless remote, the Caddy's power memory driver's seat, both exterior rearview mirrors, and my favorite radio stations are supposed to be recalled. They weren't.
__ So each time I entered the car, I had to re-enter my personal settings. Then, driving down Interstate 95 on the way to an airport meeting, the engine overheated. I stopped the car, let it cool, restarted, and everything was fine. The following week, the same thing occurred, this time while I was driving in city traffic. I called the dealer who, after running some kind of advanced remote diagnostic over the car's cell phone, said the car's computer, thermostat, and cooling system checked out OK.
__ While nothing is wrong with the Caddy's hardware and software, according to the dealer's technician, the Seville doesn't get through an 8-hour day without overheating. As if that's not bad enough, three days after I took delivery, the stereo system died. No CDs. No radio. No cassettes. The dealer's advice: Replace the radio.
__ Oops, sorry! Lost my mind for a minute. I'm back now, and feeling fine, thank you. No, I didn't take delivery of a new Cadillac. Lord knows I couldn't even afford one, and even if I could, my '85, mud-brown, ex-cop car Chevy Impala with 100,000 miles and lots of dents still starts every morning. (And my apologies to GM. I'm sure the Cadillac Seville STS is a wonderful automobile, and I'd be happy to drive one if you're willing to comp me.)
__ What I did take delivery of is the Cadillac of integrated productivity software: Microsoft Office 97 Developer Edition. And, like the Seville STS, Office 97 is costly to deploy, has a spiffy new user interface that's beautiful to look at, squeezes a powerful 32-bit ActiveX engine under the hood, and is stuffed to the brim with every ergonomic creature comfort known to man--all fully integrated with the overall computing experience.
__ I installed Office 97 onto a 133-MHz brand-name notebook with 32 Mbytes of RAM, a 1.6-Gbyte hard disk, and Windows 95 OSR2 running FAT32.
The installation went smoothly,
but that's where the honeymoon ended.

After rebooting my system, the nightmare began I first explored Microsoft Outlook, the new integrated E-mail and personal-information manager that software reviewers are gushing over. After successfully importing my Windows Messaging and Microsoft Schedule+ data, I configured Outlook to suit my preferences. One problem: It rarely remembered my settings between sessions.
__ Toolbars that I turned off reappeared. Default fonts replaced my preferred fonts. E-mail signatures didn't. Window metrics returned to defaults. Database queries appeared to return zero matches (they were actually displaying the query results beyond the display's borders, and no amount of resizing could coerce the dialog box to show the results).
__ As the hours ticked by, Outlook's performance began to degrade. It was if the notebook's CPU was hiccuping. Outlook would start, then stop, start, then stop again. I suspect the MAPI spooler crapped out, without generating an error message. Microsoft technical support experts could not isolate the cause, and called the behavior "interesting."
__ Also "interesting" was the fact that Outlook couldn't connect to InformationWeek's Microsoft Mail server through dial-up networking without hanging the operating system. CompuServe Mail couldn't dial out. Worse, running Outlook, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel simultaneously inevitably crashed my system. This is integration?
__ Microsoft Word fared no better in my testing. In addition to sharing many of Outlook's problems, Word added a few of its own. For example, VBA macros could not be deleted. Apparently VBA creates an empty container for every new macro, and the containers can't be removed. Documents containing null macros cause Word to display a virus warning every time the document is opened.
__ Other Office 97 problems: Word's document import filters don't. Navigating embedded documents feels something like swimming in a pool of molasses. Excel may unexpectedly open every file in a given directory at startup, including binaries, generating error messages with every load. Assigning a null macro to a predefined keystroke (such as Alt+W) causes a General Protection Fault.
__ The list goes on. I never got around to testing the other Office 97 applications, such as Access and PowerPoint. I was so disgusted with the product's poor performance and rambunctious behavior that I ripped it out of my system.
__ That's when the audio on my notebook died. After reinstalling my audio drivers, then reinstalling Windows 95, then spending an hour on the phone with a Microsoft OSR2 technician who said there's nothing wrong with my hardware or software, my audio remained non-functional. I finally gave up, and switched to my primary notebook system. When I have the time, I'll FDISK the test system that was polluted by Office 97, and reinstall the base OS from scratch. What has any of this to do with Cadillacs or application development? Plenty. Quality is the essential ingredient we demand in nearly everything we buy or use, with the notable exceptions of application software, development tools, and development platforms. And it is those notable exceptions that Microsoft is exploiting in it's rush to bring Office 97 Developer Edition to market.
__ Microsoft Office 97 is an extreme, though not atypical, example of the challenges IT managers face when dealing with commercially available application-development tools, end-user software products, and internally developed IT applications that exploit desktop operating systems and office productivity suites.
__ What is unusual, however, is how users and IT professionals alike tolerate low-grade software. The problems I experienced with Microsoft's flagship productivity suite and newest application-development platform become intolerable when attributed to General Motors' flagship luxury coupe. Same problems. Different context. Different user reaction.
__ That's wrong. IT professionals, ISVs, VARs, and consultants all must recognize that, in software development, as in automobiles, and as Ford Motor Company evangelizes, "Quality is Job One." Nothing else comes first. When quality is the hallmark by which your application-development efforts are judged, esoteric features are suddenly jettisoned, crazy technological hoops disappear, and slimmed down, functional software results.

My advocacy: Choose your development platforms as you would your driving platforms. Design your application software as you would an automobile. Hold software and tool vendors to the same high standards you would apply to General Motors, or Ford, or Chrysler, were you shopping for a luxury car. And insist your users apply those same standards to your organization's internal development efforts.
__ Any vendor who doesn't recognize quality matters more than new features, slick UIs, and under-the-hood technological horsepower isn't worthy of consideration. By quality, I mean 100% defect-free, high-performance code. That's what we want from our cars, cameras, telephones, and computers. Demand no less from your software and internal IT development efforts. Oh, and by the way, I did test drive a Cadillac Seville STS, just for the fun of it. It was a lot more fun than testing Office 97. Maybe it's time to send a resume to Car and Driver.

Comments?

Reprinted with permission: Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com

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