Neat article, but deeply undermined by zoho's mediocre execution in their crm product. The data model and search are solid, but the ui is wildly buggy (the back button doesn't work!) and the API is slow, missing features and poorly documented.
It's one thing to build, build, build. It's another to build well, build well, build well.
Your point is fair - there is no point in building if we don't build well. We are focused on it - and it does take a while for software to mature and become world-class, particularly complex applications with huge data models (lots of tables). As Joel Spolsky said (paraphrasing) it takes 10 years to get software truly right. We will take your criticsm to heart.
That's an elegant response, I gotta say. But here's a post on your forums about the back button not working from _5 years_ ago: https://forums.zoho.com/topic/back-button
I chose Zoho for our team, and as we grow am fielding more and more complaints about these kinds of issues. What am I supposed to tell them?
I would apologize to your team, and I would circulate this thread internally first. Second, I would review why we got this wrong. We went through a major redesign in CRM after that forum post, and the user experience got much better (our CRM sales jumped as a result). I acknowledge we still have work to do, and we will take your criticism to heart.
Small nitpick: You probably mean to say "I will apologize to your team" not "I would apologize to your team".
The word 'would' is used when expressing something in a conditional mood, often times in light of some possible future occurrence. E.g. "I would try harder if only I were getting graded for this assignment" or "I would lose my mind if anything happened to my children".
I guess we're in this together: At the least, there's gotta be a way to up the "getSearchRecords" API quota limit from a measly 250. We asked if we could _buy_ more and were told flat out "No."
I can understand APIs and UIs are complex, evolving features, but simple API quotas should be changeable. Would a limit of 1,000 / day be that stressful on your system?
It's one thing to build, build, build. It's another to build well, build well, build well.