More was more, but now less is more

IBM and Microsoft built their empires with the strategy "bigger and more features". IBM mainframes, over time, became larger (in terms of processor speed and memory capacity) and included more features. Microsoft software, over time, became larger (in terms of capacity) and included more features.

It was a successful strategy. IBM and Microsoft could win any "checklist battle" which listed the features of products. For many managers, the product with the largest list of features is the safest choice. (Microsoft and IBM's reputations also helped.)

One downside of large, complicated hardware and large, complicated software is that it leads to large, complicated procedures and data sets. Many businesses have developed their operating procedures first around IBM equipment and later around Microsoft software. When developing those procedures, it was natural to, over time, increase the complexity. New business cases, new exceptions, and special circumstances all add to complexity.

Businesses are trying to leverage mobile devices (tablets and phones) and finding that their long-established applications don't "port" easily to the new devices. They are focussing on the software, but the real issue is their processes. The complex procedures behind the software are making it hard to move business to mobile devices.

The user interfaces on mobile devices limit applications to much simpler operations. Perhaps our desire for simplicity comes from the size of the screen, or the change from mouse to touch, or from the fact that we hold the devices in our hands. Regardless of the reason, we want mobile devices to have simple apps.

Complicated applications of the desktop, with drop-down menus, multiple dialogs, and oodles of options simply do not "work" on a mobile device. We saw this with early hand-held devices such as the popular Palm Pilot and the not-so-popular Microsoft PocketPC. Palm's simple operation won over the more complex Windows CE.

Simplicity is a state of mind, one that is hard to obtain. Complicated software tempts one into complicated processes (so many fonts, so many spreadsheet formula operations, ...). Mobile devices demand simplicity. With mobile, "more" may be more, but it is not better. The successful businesses will simplify their procedures and their underlying business rules (perhaps the MBA crowd will prefer the words "streamline" or "optimize") to leverage mobile devices.