What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?
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You don't need Java plugins to make for bad software. Java was an early way of fixing problems. Main LOB issues are far worse. Like requiring fat clients, only installing localling, only on Windows, built in Delphi, require an enterprise SQL Server cluster for 1MB of data, etc.
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Mainly, ERP.
ARCA from WK, ESA Impresa from ESA Software, SAP B1, Dylog, …
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For most of the SMB, the LoB app is the an all in one ERP, CRM, Accounting, etc type of application.
Epicor's Prophet 21 was/is a good example of this. It does everything from sales to general ledger to parts and inventory. It runs on SQL Server and is a thick client, but Epicorp generally only supports it when installed on a terminal server, and not on every desktop. The newest version is now a web app according to their website, but I do not have any clients using that version yet.
Manufacturing typically has a second piece of software for controlling the machines.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@nadnerb said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@scottalanmiller said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@nadnerb said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
Java plugins for web browsers
Yes, but plugins aren't LOB. What LOB is forcing you into Java in the browser?
I blame the plugin because it's available still and holding people back by allowing practices from the 00's to continue.
What is a LOB? It sounds like a tennis shot.LOG is line of business. Like the apps that a business uses, rather than tools IT uses or whatever.
Ah, righto. We have an enrolment system from the early 00's. It requires IE only to call an adobe reader plugin. Until a year or so ago, required IE 9 or less.
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A lot of custom stuff in Accounting and ERP here. Also the CAD software... that one is huge. The product software has been designed on and for Windows.
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We have an ERP system that is also our accounting system and manages our inventory. Doesn't control machinery. The system as programmed works fine, but some aspects of it needs to be brought up to today's standards, such as for them to quit compiling it in 32-bit. 32-bit was beginning to be obsolete when 64-bit came out ~10 years ago. This is providing problems for my reports analyst. Also, they installed their system on Windows Server 2016 w/ Hyper-V installed as a role. (I plan on remedying this with a new project next year.)
Since this system gets so involved with our financials, the Director of Accounting has to approve or disapprove rights so that there is no conflict of interest for users on a business aspect. This can be difficult for other managers to grasp when trying to get new employees access to this system.
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GlobalShop EPR, that thing is written in cobol ffs. You can virtualize it, but only on ESXi - like this matter at all, but that's what they support, it runs on PervasiveSQL. So basically one big wtf.
Autodesk Vault, you're tied up to MSSQL, no cloud equivalent, no plans to support other databases. They also force you to run built-in backup tool, so your existing VM level backup system, like Veeam, has to backup twice as much data. Other Autodesk software is not much better.
Mastercam, they force you to use USB dongle for licensing, and using USB boxes over ethernet is unsupported. It might work but you won't be able to update the licenses on the dongle. So say hello to physical Windows box in your server room.
Other than that almost any ERP system that runs strictly on Windows. They will do anything so you run it on physical box, and if client runs in web browser, it will be Internet Explorer only, god forbid if it's newer than version 8. Ideally you should run Windows XP with IE 6.
I also have some quality control equipment from Pratt & Whitney, software runs on 32bit Windows 7 only. So I have one zombie PC.
I feel any software that touches manufacturing sector will be like that, stuck in the past.
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One more, UPS Worldship. While you can do your shipments online, interface is just terrible. While this app supports remote clients, you cannot install it on Windows server, at least it's unsupported, I haven't personally tried.
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IP Office.
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@marcinozga Company i work for just bought GlobalShop. I wasnt consulted about the decision at all, then they asked me to install the server and client. Ive got it working on Server 2012 running on top of Xenserver no problems. That client though, wow. Cant be installed automatically. Needs manual input like a dozen times during the install.
Still, so far is better than what theyve been using for the last 20 years(Excel spreadsheets and Parts&Vendors). -
@momurda said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@marcinozga Company i work for just bought GlobalShop. I wasnt consulted about the decision at all, then they asked me to install the server and client. Ive got it working on Server 2012 running on top of Xenserver no problems. That client though, wow. Cant be installed automatically. Needs manual input like a dozen times during the install.
Still, so far is better than what theyve been using for the last 20 years(Excel spreadsheets and Parts&Vendors).Can you tell me about the industry and what this app does? Does it have any competition of note?
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@jaredbusch said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
For most of the SMB, the LoB app is the an all in one ERP, CRM, Accounting, etc type of application.
That's what I expect. Most of these that I've run into are heavily integrated "your whole business in one app" types of things that pretty much oversee their basic operations.
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@momurda said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@marcinozga Company i work for just bought GlobalShop. I wasnt consulted about the decision at all, then they asked me to install the server and client. Ive got it working on Server 2012 running on top of Xenserver no problems. That client though, wow. Cant be installed automatically. Needs manual input like a dozen times during the install.
Still, so far is better than what theyve been using for the last 20 years(Excel spreadsheets and Parts&Vendors).Oh it will work on any virtualization platform, it's just Global Shop support is free to tell you to pound sand when you have issues, because you're using non-Vmware hypervisor, that's all. I wouldn't be so sure about being better than excel part though...
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The VMWare 'thick' client, and the VMWare flash anything. Also, IE9 is still being used.
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@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
The VMWare 'thick' client, and the VMWare flash anything. Also, IE9 is still being used.
Argh, LOB apps, not IT tool sets! I know all the IT stuff that is problematic.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
The VMWare 'thick' client, and the VMWare flash anything. Also, IE9 is still being used.
Argh, LOB apps, not IT tool sets! I know all the IT stuff that is problematic.
I relish any chance I get to vent about these items. http://corz.org/blog/inc/smileys/cool.gif
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@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@scottalanmiller said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
The VMWare 'thick' client, and the VMWare flash anything. Also, IE9 is still being used.
Argh, LOB apps, not IT tool sets! I know all the IT stuff that is problematic.
I relish any chance I get to vent about these items. http://corz.org/blog/inc/smileys/cool.gif
You sound like me and Intuit!
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@travisdh1 said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@scottalanmiller said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
@grey said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
The VMWare 'thick' client, and the VMWare flash anything. Also, IE9 is still being used.
Argh, LOB apps, not IT tool sets! I know all the IT stuff that is problematic.
I relish any chance I get to vent about these items. http://corz.org/blog/inc/smileys/cool.gif
You sound like me and Intuit!
And now you've brought back painful memories that I thought were long buried. Jerk!
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@marcinozga said in What Industry Apps Are Awful and You Are Stuck With?:
One more, UPS Worldship. While you can do your shipments online, interface is just terrible. While this app supports remote clients, you cannot install it on Windows server, at least it's unsupported, I haven't personally tried.
So Terrible.
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It's been a while since I worked on it, but the liquor distributors were more or less forced to use a crappy ERP/Inventory software from the manufacturers. Can't recall the name of it now.
Also, my HVAC client uses the a quoting tool that comes from one of the HVAC manufacturers, not sure if they ever looked for an independent solution - but that would require a ton of time setting up the parts dependencies, etc, which would likely put the cost outside of usability.
