I'm sometimes attracted to the shiny new thing, well I at least like to try it for a while on a non-production device.
The very first time I pressed the Start button on Windows 8 I was floored, flummoxed and floundering for familiarity. I liked the idea of it because it felt like Microsoft had brought something to the table that was going to enable some tablet (or iPad as we called them at the time) functionality. Bloggers and journalists described the new Start Screen as "jarring" and while I agreed, I knew I was annoyed by it for a different reason.
I'm a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 user (also had an SP2), so I liked the touch ability but I don't think it made a suitable iPad replacement… it was edging towards a laptop replacement during the 2nd iteration… and now, Surface pro 3 is a fine laptop replacement. I love this device and I am one of the few "likers" of Windows 8 and I would argue in favour of Windows 8 over Windows 7 especially since the 8.1 release…. With the exception of one big thing…
It was when I spent the last 3 or 4 days using Windows 10 (due for public release mid 2015) that I realised exactly what was wrong with the Windows 8 Start Screen for me.
Have you ever walked into a room and thought 'why did I walk in here, what am I looking for?' Well, that was (is) me with Windows 8 Start Screen. I could be working on a document and decide I need to find something germane, so I press the start key and I am faced with a full screen of live tiles with images of rain, old school friends smiling with their new kitten, news in Syria etc.,,, and now I cannot remember what I came in here for.
If I press escape I can re-read what I was working on and then go back into that live tile room and try to recall what I thought was so important earlier. It was after pushing up to Windows 10 that I realised what I missed about the old windows start menu… continuity & contextual reference-ability.
I think Windows 8 came too soon…. In a way, Windows 10 should have come first (pepper in just a little section of live tiles)… then in a future Windows version from far, far away.. maybe the full start screen would have been more acceptable..?
I look forward to a stable launch of Windows 10 though I am surprised how early they released this preview. Windows 10 should bring businesses the OS they need to move on to from the Windows XP and soon Windows 7 platform.
While Leonardo da Vinci is a household name synonymous with painting, sculpture, observation and invention, few would be aware of the name Luca Pacioli, Leonardo's friend and mathematics teacher and father of the modern double entry accounting system.
In 1494 Luca's textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" was published and included most of the accounting cycle as we know it today. He described the use of journals and ledgers, and warned that one should not go to sleep at night until the debits equalled the credits. His ledger had accounts for assets, liabilities, capital, income, and expenses. He demonstrated year-end closing entries and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger. Fast forward almost 500 years into the digital age and we continue to conform to the now ancient rules of debits, credits, journals, ledgers and trial balances albeit now on personal computers in various guises.
So, why the need for a Research and Development team in an accounting and business management software Company like Intact Software?
While back office accounting standards have remained relatively constant, modern organisations are continuously striving to become leaner and more competitive. Leveraging technology enables businesses to automate laborious manual processes freeing up key staff and empowers company principals to focus on their growth. This results in businesses operating within the same market having different processes, different measures and ways of doing business. The net effect is that an out of the box software solution cannot meet the requirements of both businesses.
While many software vendors often implement "best practice" on their clients, the companies that have grown, and continue to grow, have done so by increasing customer satisfaction through ever tweaking & improving their business process. Removing that competitive edge by conforming to off the shelf software is not the approach modern companies are now choosing to take. They simply want to automate and computerise these lean processes that have served well though the years.
To provide these lean and tailored solutions, Intact Software invest heavily in staying ahead of the competition, understanding trends in the SME markets and responding to the ever modernising needs of a worldwide customer base encompassing over 10,000 users of our solutions. The culture within our company is one of continuous improvement through listening to the demands of our customers & partners and of course our soon to be customers & partners.
Our boldest R & D move in recent years was to relocate the team to a separate geographical location and away from the day to day operational demands. We sought a suitable location where we could control access to the team and therefore maintain the required focus on innovation and bringing our third generation product Intact iQ to market. After months of investigation, we relocated to a space synonymous with start-ups and not with companies over 20 years in operation. Surrounding our team with the entrepreneurial spirit of the start-ups was a hugely advantageous side effect.
While the rules of accounting remain constant, it is important that innovators like Intact Software continue to enable new business processes to be included and measured within the Luca's ancient standards.
