I just got off the phone this afternoon with a sales prospect who is considering Microsoft Dynamics GP. They love the product and would like to move to it at some time but they have a problem with a mission-critical software they use.

The mission-critical software does an excellent job for their revenue and billing needs but handicaps them substantially when accounting information from that software package needs to integrate into their accounting software. Any meaningful data export is problematic and needs substantial data manipulation before it is ready to use as an data input file to their accounting software. The company is making do for now but have been frustrated with the non-responsive nature of their mission-critical software publisher to their needs. The vendor knows they have a great product that does an excellent job at it’s assigned task. However, the software publisher does not want to consider any integration of the software with other software products that may need the data.

GREAT!! Continued use of the product only perpetuates the time-consuming and error prone business process of data manipulation this company has been experiencing!!!

This reminds me of a quote Doug Burgum of Great Plains Software (now Microsoft) once made about the nature of software. He said, “The problem with many software products today is that it is like a 7 year old boy on the playground at recess. It wants its’ own way, does not care much about others and indeed often does not play well with other children on the playground!”

Guess this is a good example of that. How do we get software publishers to “grow up”?