I'm not sure I get your question. Is there room for a better bug tracking system? You bet. I haven't found one with an awesome UI, powerful reporting mechanism and support to adapt to the workflow of big companies.
Interesting. My question was more in general. I read things about how you need to differentiate yourself but I see no obvious differentiation in many new software companies.
But, it is interesting that you mention you haven't found any really good bug tracking packages. I know there are a ton of players in the game, are they just incrementally better than the last?
"I see no obvious differentiation in many new software companies"
Right. Don't forget that the key words are, "I see".
There's plenty you don't see. Anyone still in stealth mode. And those still not understood by the sheep who call themselves journalists. And don't forget, the best is always less than 10% of the rest.
Patience. Patience. Many of us here are working at it.
I actually used to develop on a bug tracking system. I've used dozens.
I've never found one that was any good, and the majority of engineers and managers always complained about them. Either they're slow, unwieldy, complicated, feature light, bad at reporting, don't integrate with source control, integrate too much with source control, etc.
I have a cynical view about them now and pretty much put-up with whatever I have. Since I know they're all pretty bad and it's impossible to please everyone, my expectations have been lowered.
Someone who used to also develop on bug tracking software told me to check out JIRA, but I'm skeptical as always:
I like Jira. We use it to track pre-release software defects and it is quick to do commonly used functions like searching, screenshots, commenting on issues (no, it doesn't integrate with our CVS but we don't need it to). Once the software is released, per protocol, an issue with the software has to be tracked through our Siebel CRM solution (ugh, ugh). Jira compared to Siebel in terms of developer friendliness/usability - no contest.
I'm not very pleased with Jira. We've had constant issues with it being slow or going down. Jira has a lot of features but most of the time it gets in my way.
The good news about JIRA is it has a decent API so you can probably write your own tools and reporting on top and not have to put up with their crap UI.
