software companies - please note

Every month or so, someone shows me their software - mostly in the collaboration or KM field. They would like my advice on it or they would even like me to sell it for them. They are all very smart - smarter than me. However there are often some significant things they leave out:

• Before we go into the demo, do you have a brochure? Yes an old skool, 2-page A4 brochure. Telling me: who the product is for; what it does for them; how it is different to everyone else operating in this space* and then what it's technical specifications are. If you do not have that, go to the back of the class.
• Hold off the demo for a bit longer. Do you have any references. Who has implemented this? Which bits have they implemented? Are they willing to go on the record that they have implemented it and that it is not a pile of ****? No references is not fatal but they are very helpful.
  
• Now we go onto the demo. Is the demo available as a video file I can take away and look at? If not, can we have a couple of those please?
• Finally pricing. How much will this baby cost - hosted, on server, or in a sesame seed bun? Don't be bashful now, it'll have to come out some time.

This is a shame because these applications are mostly the opposite of "brochureware" (i.e. all the things I mentioned above but without any actual, y'know, working software). So I am more than happy to see your software (and tell other people about it who may be interested) but please read this beforehand.

*Yes, I know you have no competitors. I am six foot five of rippling muscle who melts the hearts of all who gaze upon me. Now if we can pilot a course for reality, warp factor ten please?

should enterprise software be sexy?

when i worked at a certain large enterprise software vendor, i cringed when people (mostly men) would say software solutions had to be "sexy". it made me wonder what they got up to with their partners at home: "yeah baby, work that GUI interface for me, oh jesus, yeesssSSSSS".

sexy is what other human bodies are - unless you are some kind of pervert*. but taking stephen's sexy comment literally - what does that mean?

i would argue that enterprise apps are supermodel sexy. they apply unreal expectations of (process-based) leanness to the rest of us. or rather they make us apply those to ourselves. and hence they are not sexy at all. now ladies and gentlemen, i want you to picture a special time with your partner. when they have made you feel like the sexiest person on earth. how did they do that? well (and i wasn't there, so i'm just guess here) they probably made you feel wanted. and happy about being you. and just the right shape physically, emotionally, mentally. and goddam necessary to their happiness too. they probably touched you in ways you'd never been touched before.

how often does enterprise software do that?

*according to freud, we are all perverts - so the pressure's off people.