AMR Research Says "The New Game is Ease of Use and Accessibility"

Here's a must read: AMR Research: Functionality Is Dead, and some excerpts from it:

"But rather than be a sporadic phenomenon, ease of use and accessibility are about to enter a time in which they will become a selection metric on par with technology and functionality. AMR Research has been spotting this trend for the last year or so." ...

"If no one uses it, it doesn't matter
These examples and others serve as a reminder to IT and business managers that while technological and functional requirements are important, so too are applications that will be embraced by real people. One of the largest problems that enterprise applications have is that they are too hard to use. For such applications, if users can avoid them to get their job done, history has shown that they will. This truth has manifested itself in countless enterprise applications being used the bare minimum, which has made it harder for IT organizations to show a positive return on their investment."

A more to-the-point way of stating the last sentence is "Lack of attention to usability has made it harder for IT organizations to show business value." AMR hit the nail on the head with this one. Technology pushers need to wake up.