[drieddust]

Enterprise help desk tool design manifesto:

* Screen should always be filled with buttons and menu options which are never used or understood.

* We love Google and feel search belongs to them so we go to that extra mile to make searching hard.

* Email Integration will make life easy for the support staff so lets make it impossible.

* Support staff is lazy so lets force them to click at least 5 buttons before they are allowed to make an update. By making them click though those button we are bringing them back to reality.

* We love excel so lets make reporting so tough that Microsoft excel stays in business forever.

* Categorization should be multilevel so Support staff should always end up categorizing it wrong. Remember we love Google.

* Of Course our hidden agenda is to sell our support and consulting services.

[prateekdayal]

An interesting corollary that we have observed is that after using such softwares for many years, organizations start believing that there support workflows (and hence the tools they use) have to be complex. Anything simple will just not do :)