written by Bob Green, CPA.CITP – Partner, SingerLewak LLP – SingerLewak Systems
Ok. This isn’t my usual Cloud Computing thought leadership. This is just an observation about Microsoft – who is yet to offer a multi-tenant ERP Cloud solution. The observation comes from our travels where we’ve been advising clients on software selection.
The point
Graphical user interface familiarity has certainly paid off. Say what you might about Microsoft, but they have really done a great job of leveraging familiarity into a “wow” factor when people see certain of their accounting software products demonstrated for the first time. The “wow” may not really be about functionality, or fit to task – but rather it’s about comfort and warm fuzzies. And, it’s paying dividends… How so?
Redmond’s engineers have worked hard at making a number of their accounting products (AX, GP, etc.) look, and feel, in many working screens, like Outlook and other Office products. Familiar ribbon bars, navigation panes on the left side of the screen, and traditional Office colors and fonts are thrown at the users as often as possible. We’ve seen this level of “look and feel” comfort work to Microsoft’s advantage, particularly when it came down to relatively equal functionality with competing (non-Cloud) products.
Kind of reminds me of auto company design strategies, right?
