[Sigia-l] "the year of consumability"

[Ziya Oz]

OK, I haven't made that up:

"In the [IBM] Software Group we call this the year of consumability. We want
to make it easier for our customers to consume software and get value out of
it much faster."

IBM Joins User Experience Race
<http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2134810,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K000059
4>

IBM, the company that came up with that most unfortunate phrase "user
engineering" a decade ago, has been selling complexity for decades, as a
fundamental aspect of their business model.

<http://www-03.ibm.com/easy/page/1996>

In fact, I used to use Lotus screenshots to demo atrocious UX examples years
ago. Now it's 2007 and I find the IBM Lotus GM fantastically naïve in the
above article, both in language and framing.

Am I wrong? Is this isolated to the Lotus group? How is it possible that
such a colossal company in the U.S. (with claim to "user engineering" no
less) can discover, uhm, 'consumability' in 2007? How can one not despair?

----
Ziya

"People who live in the present often wind up exploiting the present to an
extent that it starts removing the possibility of having a future."