On Mar 6, 2006, at 2:25 PM, Prather, Wanda wrote:

...
And WHERE did this notion of "one consolidated front end" come from?

...

Unfortunately, it seems to be in the genomes of the company, making
for an unrelenting urge to create ponderous interface systems
regardless of cost or practicality. Those of us who have been around
IBM a long time recall the absolutely astounding corporate fiasco
called System Application Architecture. The definition in redbook
"The Library for System Solutions End User Interface Reference" (at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/GG244107.html) summarizes it
thusly:

"SAA is the detailed architecture (specifications) about software
interfaces, conventions and protocols that programmers use to create
common applications. SAA specifications provide a structure that
enables consistent, transparent access to information resources
across IBM operating environments i.e. OS/2, OS/400, VM, MVS and any
other which adhere to these specifications."

In other words, IBM had these disparate operating systems, and
someone thought it would be a good idea to divert about 40% of the
corporation's efforts over several years toward a Grand Unification
Theory. After untold millions of dollars of effort, and countless
hours diverted from customer attention, it collapsed under its own
weight. But the urge never seems to die, and thus we keep seeing
these efforts to create unwieldy interfaces, which satisfy designer
ambitions more than they do end user needs or customer satisfaction.

In stark contrast to such design orientations, there is Apple, with
arguably the best human interfaces in the industry, providing immense
user satisfaction in outstanding usability and performance. They
achieve this largely because they remain focused on usability and
speed - and because the people there use this software themselves.
Straying from such basic objectives, and becoming distracted by
"architecture", results in designs which satisfy only designers...who
must think that there's something wrong with the end users if they
don't appreciate how wonderful the design is.

Outstanding interfaces can be realized; but the corporate culture
must be of a kind which allows it to naturally occur. Where
bureaucracy and departmentalization are overbearing, it just doesn't
seem to happen.

   Richard Sims