Why do hardware manufacturers insist on writing custom software for their installers and driver settings? As long as I have connected things to computers (Win or Mac), I have been stunned and appalled at the inexplicable attempts made by printer, camera, phone, and video card manufacturers to produce the computer-side part of their products.
After all the hard work put in by OS and software vendors to make it easy for them to "fit in" comfortably with the rest of the platform, they apparently just can't keep their crap software developers down.
Take a look at this (admittedly unremarkable) example from Epson:
Never mind that Mac OS X (like Windows) provides a lovely, user-friendly, painstakingly researched and usability-tested solution for software installation - no no no, Epson, like their equally software-braindead competitors, decided it would be much better to pay some software industry rejects gobs of cash to develop a custom installer, packed with confusing screens with too many images, cryptic sub-product names, and custom controls (like what the hell does that progress bar bring to the table???)
Why oh why do they find this necessary? Someone somewhere must feel there is a real business case for this, because it ain't free to develop this excrement. Surely hardware manufacturers have close enough ties with the OS vendors to have been informed of the recommended approach. Why haven't they noticed that almost all software vendors - actual experts in software development - opt for the OS-provided solutions to install their products?
If you are reading this and you know someone who works for a peripherals manufacturer, please take action. Friends don't let friends distribute crap software!
