Even enterprise software is not immune to simplification making it useless. For instance, the terrible Windows 8 Metro interface now appears on Server 2012.

The strangest one I’ve noticed lately is that Backup Exec, probably the most commonly used backup software in the Enterprise IT world, removed the backup job monitor screen altogether from their software.

This was the screen that allowed you to see how your backups were doing, what their status was, how long they’d been running, etc. Just gone. Probably the most-important screen after the ability to set up backup jobs, no longer there – making the software completely useless. And according to Symantec (the makers of the software), making it “simpler.”

After a massive and year-long customer outcry, the backup job monitor screen has now been returned.

No one who uses enterprise-class back-end software like this needs a Fisher Price interface. No one. Why enterprise software makers think taking all the bad ideas they thrust on regular users and hobbling their software intended for experts with the same terrible ideas makes any sense – well, I just can’t imagine what they were thinking.

Software that makes it impossible to do what it’s actually intended to do for the sake of “simplification” is utterly pointless. Regular users are so apathetic most of the time that it won’t matter, but enterprise users who actually need the software to do their jobs correctly just won’t accept it long-term.