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Business Strategy for Software Executives |
March 12, 2007 |
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Are You Really a SaaS Vendor?Here’s why the most successful SaaS vendors think of themselves as business-to-business Web companies – not software companies.By Treb Ryan, OpSource Most software companies think on-demand applications are a replacement for traditional business software. They couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, these software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are sold as a service and paid for per-transaction, but they are developed, sold and delivered in the same manner as traditional licensed software. The most successful software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies do not think of themselves as software companies selling software on-demand, but as Web companies with business users accessing a service over the Internet. These companies realize that to effectively start and grow a SaaS business, they need to act more like a consumer-based Web company than a traditional enterprise software company.
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Tech VCs to Get Gobbled?
Consolidation: The New MediocrityAs Oracle swallows Hyperion and sets off a wave of buying in business intelligence, Erik Keller of Wapiti LLC wonders why software makers are pursuing a 100-year-old strategy of consolidation. Read his argument for why consolidation is driving down software product quality in this week’s post to his SandHill.com Blog, The Software Critic. Publish Your Perspective!The SandHill.com Blog wants your opinions. Send your thoughts on the enterprise software industry to editor@sandhill.com and we’ll publish them in our blog.
Making CEOs into Public Leaders: A McKinsey & Co. SurveyUS business executives say they should play a much greater role in shaping debate about sociopolitical issues and leading efforts to effect change. Read the latest survey from McKinsey & Co. in this article from The McKinsey Quarterly. News Update: A Mini Y2K?IT and the media fret over the early onset of Daylight Savings Time; plus, Dave Dewalt defects, Gates testifies to improve U.S. competitiveness, Oracle modifies its pricing and Ingres goes to India. Read these stories and more software news of the week in the latest SandHill.com Software News Summary.
Poll: Does Consolidation Lead to Mediocrity?Some industry observers like Erik Keller believe consolidation is stifling innovation and breeding mediocrity in software products. What do you think? Last week, readers gave their opinions on which business intelligence vendor would be acquired next. What do you think? More at SandHill.com:No big problems from early Daylight Savings Time change. Adaptive Planning receives $7.5 million. Open Text buys Momentum Systems. Juniper Networks names Michael Lawrie to the board of directors. Send us your feedback on this newsletter and the SandHill.com site. Parting Thought“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.” Courtesy of Malcolm Kusher, The Kushner Group |
THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR
Symphony Services helps enterprises leverage the global economy to gain competitive advantage. Symphony combines core competencies in complex analytics and software engineering with deep domain knowledge and process expertise to deliver measurable value to clients. SOFTWARE PULSESoftware Pulse is a publication of SandHill.com, the online resource for software business strategy. To subscribe, To unsubscribe, see the bottom of this email. Forward this email to a friend Send us your feedback, SandHill.com is published by Sand Hill Group, which provides investment and management advice to emerging leaders in the $600 billion enterprise software, services and solutions market. Sand Hill Group produces the Software and the Enterprise series of conferences for industry executives, and authors research reports on cutting-edge technology topics. |
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Could private equity firms be ready to start buying technology VC firms? That’s what Sand Hill Group’s M.R. Rangaswami thinks. MR spoke to Optimize magazine’s Brian Gillooly about what investment insights may come out of the Software 2007 conference. 