09
May
2007
|
07:44 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Software 2007 Notes: Enterprise Software Is Certainly Not Dead...

mr.jpgTwo dueling conferences this week, Software 2007 and Sun Microsystems' JavaOne conference. Software 2007 was the clear choice and that's where most of the local hacks could be found.

I had once written:

The enterprise software market is dead, dead, dead....

I was wrong. Enterprise software markets are not dead boring. They're just plain dead.

But that was before I started going to MR Rangaswami's Software 2005 conference. And I've become a big fan of MR "the swami of enterprise software" as I've called him, because he has made the this space interesting again. And because he has created one of the best conferences in Silicon Valley.

Every year it gets better and this year it featured keynotes from top stars of the sector: Steve Ballmer Microsoft; Hasso Plattner, SAP; Shane Robison
Hewlett-Packard, and of course local royalty, Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com.

- Software 2007 Powered by Innovation

The Old Guard Turn Up

It was interesting to see the old guard of the enterprise software sector, Microsoft, SAP, EMC, etc, because the show is very focused on software as a service (SAAS). And there is little love lost between these two very different camps.

Even though the software giants continually announce SAAS ventures, the SAAS business model is disruptively different. With SAAS, customers pay for exactly what they use, rather than pay a big lump fee for an enterprise  license and then 20 percent in annual maintenance fees

"When your customers are on a monthly service plan, you have to continually deliver value and innovation. It is not about just selling a license and disappearing till the next time. You have to be continually on your toes," says Michael Gregoire, CEO of Taleo, a leading talent management service company.

Software Startup Investments Magnified By Offshoring 

MR is a tireless promoter of the enterprise software industry: "There are billions of dollars being invested  BY VCs in enterprise software startups. And if you think about the use of off-shoring some of the development, the use of open source software, and other technologies, you actually are getting a factor of four or five greater than the dollar amount suggests." This is going to produce tremendous amounts of innovation, he says.

Late last year MR sold the conference to CMP, the trade media and events company. - CMP buys Sand Hill Group's Software conference for up to $9m

I have met with Eric Faurot, CMP's savvy chief strategist, who led the deal. He said he wanted to take MR's Software 2000 conference and roll it into CMP's Interop show in Las Vegas to recreate a type of Comdex--which used to be the mammoth show. MR told me that he thinks his Software conference could become bigger than Interop. He could be right.

Media Matters

On Tuesday morning I was on a fun panel moderated by Sabrina Horn, head of the Horn Group. Here is a write up from Martha Feingold from the Horn Group:

Media - Who Matters Most?
Martha Feingold

The provocative title of this post is the subject we sought to tackle at our breakout session at Software 2007 today.  Our CEO Sabrina Horn put together an interesting mix of media and enterprise software executives- Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, Forbes' Victoria Barret , Ben Smith of Merchant Circle, Helen Donnelly of EnterpriseDB and Sam Whitmore from MediaSurvey.

 Horn Group Weblog

We got some excellent feedback from the audience, which is always very satisfying.

I'm off to moderate a panel on film financing, more Software 2007 notes are on their way...

- - -

Please see SVW:

Notes from Software 2005: Lunch with the Swami of the enterprise software sector...
The Swami of enterprise software
At Software 2005, MR Rangaswami of the Sand Hill Group wonders if the era of the $1 billion software company is over. Tom Foremski reports on this and other nuggets from the swami of software.  
The enterprise software market is dead, dead, dead....
I was wrong. Enterprise software markets are not dead boring. They're just plain dead.
death-of-Enterprise.jpg An update to my online debate with the esteemed journalist John Gallant, Editorial Director of Network World, who disagrees with my assertion that enterprise software markets have become dead boring. I'd like to change my argument. Enterprise software markets are dead. Period. Killed by Larry Ellison.

Posted by Tom Foremski on September 13, 2005 2:46 AM

Enterprise software might not be dead after all. . . at least not in early April

Death-of-Ent_Redux-sm.jpg

Posted by Tom Foremski on February 7, 2006 11:00 AM