Citation
(1999), "The last one", Work Study, Vol. 48 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.1999.07948caa.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
The last one
The last one
Does anyone remember a product called The Last One (TLO)? It was a software package that was supposed to mark the end of programming it was in fact the last software package you would ever need. Of course the fact that it is no longer around means either that the hype was greater than the reality (in a software promotion - surely not!) or that there was a conspiracy among other software suppliers to kill it so they could retain their massive revenues. I am, of course, inclined to think the former. What made me think of it was a message I received from an acquaintance in the USA suggesting that the reason I (and others) had not received any of his intermittent newsletters was that he had changed his computer system and had not found a simple way of converting his old address files. I am sure TLO would have done this easily. Why does software do lots of clever things - but rarely quite what we want? Answers, on a postcard please, to William Gates in Seattle.