[ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS] You Have Five Minutes: Practice

Here's a great article http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/07/13/you-have-five-minutes-practice/ ...the importance of practicing can't be pushed on us enough!

You Have Five Minutes: Practice
July 13th, 2008 Sean Murphy

I am always surprised by how unprepared CEO’s and founders were to meet the time limits, typically five or six minutes, that they had been given at various conferences to get their point across: Office 2.0, Under The Radar, and Struct08 to name a few that come most readily to mind.

This is not an artificial limit.

Peter Cohan, in his Great Demo! methodology, stresses the need to get through a basic demo in six minutes. Get the audience’s attention with a glimpse of what’s possible that can help them satisfy a real business need.

On a trade show floor you have perhaps a minute to a minute and a half to capture prospect’s attention, after you’ve gotten them to stop and listen to that much.

When you meet someone at a networking event and are asked “what do you do” you have perhaps 30 to 45 seconds to trigger a conversation. This is typically referred to as the “elevator pitch.” Entrepreneurs should bear in mind that most buildings in Silicon Valley are two to four stories, it’s a very short ride.

Even if you come have arranged a meeting in someone’s office for 30 minutes, the first five or six minutes set the tone for the balance of the time. Jill Konrath’s third story in her “3 Hard Earned Lessons from the School of Hard Knocks” post recounts an actual situation:

“Sit down,” he said gruffly. “You’ve got 5 minutes. Talk.”

“If you’re busy, I’ll come,” I said, trying to be gracious.

“Nope,” he stated. ” 5 minutes. Tell me why I should buy your product. Your 5 minutes is starting now.”

I mumbled. I stumbled. I tried to engage him in conversation. I tried to explain that I needed more time. He wasn’t one bit interested. After 5 minutes, he arose and said, “Your time is up. You can leave now.”

[…] I couldn’t concisely state why he should listen to me.

I wanted to build a relationship and warm up the call. That made me feel better. He was a busy man who chose to use his time judiciously. I didn’t respect his needs.

There is really only one way to achieve this. Practice.

“It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.”

[DIGITAL MEDIA]: Everywhere TV (Article by Linda Childers -- FastCompany July08)

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/127/next-innovation-cant-escape-tv.html

 

Big-box Stores [0]

Key player: PRN
Screens: 200,000
Locations: More than 6,000 stores, including Costco, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Circuit City
Potential audience: 250 million viewers monthly
Programming: Content from the Food Network, Discovery Health, and Reuters
Updated: Weekly
Major advertisers: Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Unilever, Canon, Gillette, and Johnson & Johnson
Nielsen says: Among Best Buy viewers, 55% of those surveyed could recall the ads they viewed.
Viewing experience: Remember when you could watch a ball game on the bank of TVs in the electronics department? Those were the days.

Gas Stations [0]

Key player: Gas Station TV
Screens: 5,000-plus
Locations: 400 U.S. cities
Potential audience: 30 million monthly
Programming: CBS creates 4.5-minute blocks of custom content, including two segments for news and one for entertainment.
Updated: Daily
Major advertisers: Car- and snack-related brands such as Chevrolet, Ford, Progressive, Kellogg's, and Nestlé. Ad rates range from $17 to $20 cost-per-thousand (CPM).
Nielsen says: In January 2008, 84% of those surveyed said they'd view or listen to GSTV at their next fill-up.
Viewing experience: The 20-inch screen on top of the pump diverts your attention from gas prices.

Grocery Stores [0]

Key player: CBS Outernet
Locations: 1,500 stores, including Albertsons, Jewel, and Price Chopper
Potential audience: 80 million monthly
Programming: CBS's clips from Dr. Phil, Inside Edition, and Entertainment Tonight, plus magazine content from More, American Baby, and Family Circle
Updated: Weekly
Major advertisers: Grocery giants Colgate, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, and Dannon, at $6 CPM
Nielsen says: Approximately 38% of its potential audience actively watches or listens to CBS Outernet screens.
Viewing experience: Screens are in the produce and meat departments rather than at checkout, to promote specials and offer recipes -- and catch you while there's still time to fill your cart.

Doctors' Office [0]

Key player: AccentHealth
Locations: 11,200 doctors' offices
Potential audience: More than 140 million viewers annually
Programming: CNN designs a special health show that covers topics such as parenting, nutrition, stress reduction, and smoking cessation.
Updated: Monthly
Major Advertisers: CVS, Quaker, and 9 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
Nielsen says: According to a 2006 study, 93% of surveyed viewers rated AccentHealth programming either "good" or "excellent."
Viewing experience: According to Nielsen, the average wait time for patients is 30.2 minutes. In other words, they're the ultimate captive audience.

The Proverbial "Third Place" [0]

Key Player: Ripple
Locations: More than 1,500 stores, including Borders, Jack in the Box, and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Potential audience: More than 20 million consumers monthly
Programming: Reuters, E! Entertainment, The New York Times, Yahoo, Clear Channel, and of course, CBS
Updated: Live feeds
Major advertisers: Wachovia, Live Nation, and Ford. Ripple even lets people buy "ShoutOuts," for $1 a pop, to embarrass loved ones while waiting for their mochas.
Nielsen says: An October 2007 study shows that 61% of consumers viewed Ripple where it aired, and 74% said they'd watch again.
Viewing experience: Segments run from 15 seconds to 2.5 minutes, because heaven forbid we ever get bored.

 

[OPEN SOURCE] Applying the Bee Keeper model beyond captive open source projects

Today's post is a very interesting article by open source guru Matt Aslett:

Applying the Bee Keeper model beyond captive open source projects

Matthew Aslett, June 20, 2008 @ 8:50 am ET

I’ve been reading The Bee Keeper (also here in PDF), an explanation of the relationship between professional open source software (POSS) vendors and their communities, written by Pentaho’s CTO James Dixon. It is a very elegant explanation of the development/business model employed by the POSS vendors such as MySQL, Pentaho, JBoss and Alfresco.

James uses the analogy of the Bee Keeper to explain the model. It’s worth reading the paper in its entirety to understand just how appropriate this is but to put it very simply: the vendor is the bee keeper; the community is the bees; the open source project is the honey; and the customer is after processed honey (supported open source software). In order to be successful the bee keeper must satisfy the customers but also the bees, to ensure that they do not leave the hive, or sting him.

The analogy goes much deeper than that but you get the idea. One of the limitations of the Bee Keeper model, as admitted in the paper, is that it applies only to vendor-dominated (some would say captive) open source projects. As James writes: “This model does not apply to POSS companies with service/certification models such as Optaros, SpikeSource.”

I’ve been thinking about that, and while the Bee Keeper model does not apply, I think the analogy of bees and honey can be adapted to fit both the service/certification models and hybrid/proprietary extension models, as well as explain the approach taken by vendors that support or build on community-led projects such as Apache or PostgreSQL.

The answer comes from the fact that, as well as man-made hives, wild bees also produce honey in bee nests, from which the honey is available to everyone who fancies trying to extract it.
If we assume that there is an abundance of bee nests (and I would describe 179,979 SourceForge projects as an abundance) and that many of these nests are both mature and highly productive (like PostgreSQL and Apache) then we begin to see how a business model could develop based on the collection and processing of wild honey, rather than man-made hives.

There are some consumers (adopters) that might prefer the taste (and low cost) of wild honey and are happy to go to the effort of collecting it and processing it for themselves. However, if they do not want to take the time or the risk to do so instead they might pay a honey collector (support provider) to do the job for them.

While the honey collector does not have responsibility to look after the bees that a bee keeper has he will have to take care not to disrupt the nest and may well choose to make an effort to nurture the nest and encourage honey production. Of course, as these are wild bees there is also always a risk that the bees will leave the nest or production will dry up.

The collector is also aware that any improvements resulting from his efforts are available to everyone and rivals can easily set up alternative honey collection businesses. A solution to this problem is to add more value beyond the pure honey and/or use the honey to create something else, with the honey collector adding some proprietary know how of his own to create a related product.

If we accept the accuracy of Wikipedia’s statement “most commercially available honey is blended, meaning that it is a mixture of two or more honeys” then we begin to see how there is a role for honey collectors to become blenders (service/certification providers) that pick and choose honey from a variety of freely available bee nests and blend it together to produce a more palatable product.

Taking this a step further there is also an opportunity to create a completely different product. An example would be a brewer of mead. A brewer could of course choose to develop his own honey using man-made hives or acquire honey from a bee keeper, but by exploiting wild honey he lowers production costs and focuses on the additional value he brings to the production process.

EnterpriseDB is a great example of these models in action. The company is a honey collector - offering technical support for existing PostgreSQL deployments for those that want some extra peace of mind, while its Postgres Plus and Postgres Plus Advanced Server products are based on the community-developed PostgreSQL database.

EnterpriseDB is also a blender. Postgres Plus includes the core PostgreSQL database, as well as additional free and open source packages, such as open source database migration tools, grid capabilities and geo-spatial support. These technologies are also available for free, but customers are prepared to pay a fee to have the company combine and support them. Other examples of open source blender companies would include Optaros, OpenLogic and SpringSource/Covalent, or even larger services providers.

Meanwhile it is also a brewer – adding proprietary extensions such as migration tools, Oracle compatibility and dynamic tuning to create Postgres Plus Advanced Server. These technologies are only available from EnterpriseDB and come at a price. Other open source brewer companies include IBM, Greenplum, Netezza, and Datallegro.

As EnterpriseDB shows, it is possible to follow more than one model at the same time.
Does that make sense or have I stretched the analogy too far? I am really thinking aloud here so it is quite possible I’m talking out of my a―nyway, let me know what you think.

By the way, in The Bee Keeper, James also writes: “I don’t know how applicable it is to POSS companies with distro models such as Red Hat Linux and SuSE Linux.” I’m with him on that one. The Linux kernel/Fedora/RHEL model introduces a two-tier hive/nest and whichever way I think about it, the analogy doesn’t seem to fit.

http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/06/20/applying-the-bee-keeper-model-beyond-captive-open-source-projects/

[ENTERPRISE]: Outsourcing a prevalent trend as systems integrators surge in 2007 Software 500

The Software 500
Feature (October 2007)

Applications Go Worldwide
by John P. Desmond

Outsourcing a prevalent trend as systems integrators surge in 2007 Software 500  

The worldwide distribution of application development, maintenance and management services of all kinds is evident in the results of the 2007 Software 500 survey. More companies list system integration services/IT consulting — including a number of offshore services providers — as their primary business sector. System integration was cited by 29 Software 500 companies as their primary business sector, and employment in that sector increased 15% from 2005 to 2006, the survey ranking year.

Overall, total 2007 Software 500 revenue of $394 billion worldwide for 2006 represents growth of 3.5% from the previous year, when total Software 500 revenue was $381 billion.

The software industry remains among the most important in the knowledge worker economy, evidenced by the growth in total employees in the 2007 Software 500, which rose 14.7% to 2,914,480. Software is projected to be the third fastest-growing industry in the U.S. economy over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor. Wages are expected to increase more than 60% through 2014 — about five times the 14% growth projected for all industries combined.

The AeA, a trade association representing all segments of the high-tech industry, in its ninth annual Cyberstates: 2006 report released in April 2006, estimated total high-tech industry employment at 5.6 million workers in 2005. (See www.aeanet.org/cyberstates.) Thus software and services would be employing from 45% to 50% of all high-tech workers.

In the 2007 Software 500, outside of system integration services, employee growth was strong in search/portal tools (a 65% increase for nine companies), messaging/communications (a 27% increase for six companies), security tools/systems (26% for 22 companies), human resource/workforce management systems (24% for 18 companies), and application/managed service providers (20% for seven companies).

The top of the 2007 Software 500 sees few changes, as IBM again takes the No. 1 position with a 3.4% increase in software and services revenue to $66.5 billion. Microsoft placed second, with 8.8% growth to $39.3 billion in software and services revenue. Again EDS, Hewlett-Packard Co., Accenture and Computer Sciences Corp. were ranked three through six as the largest system integration firms continue their important role of providing IT services.

Growth Leaders

Among the fastest-growing companies, with more than $1 billion in revenue, LogicaCMG plc, an IT services company with more than 40,000 employees at No. 16, stands out with 65% revenue growth. Also standing out is Symantec, at No. 20, with 60.4% growth for its software security business, and Gemalto NV, at No. 36, with 51% growth for its leadership in digital security. Infosys Technologies Ltd., the services company based in India, grew at a 35% rate, a little bit slower than its 50% growth rate of a year earlier but still very healthy.

Autonomy Corp. at No. 127, a leader in “meaning-based computing” or the use of unstructured information, shows the most impressive gains among companies with $100 million to $1 billion in revenue and revenue growth of 161%. The next growth leader in this category is Interwoven, Inc., at No. 144 a top player in intelligent content management, with revenue growth of 79%. salesforce.com grew 76% to reach No. 109, evidence that its on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) and application platform strategies are working. In the last four years of the Software 500, salesforce.com has risen by 138 positions, making it one of the growth leaders in that time.

Also impressive in this revenue range is ANSYS, Inc., with growth of 67% for the engineering simulation products provider. FAST, at No. 158, saw growth of 62% as its enterprise search products surpass 3,500 installations. (FAST has moved up 111 positions in four years on the Software 500.) Secure Computing Corp, the security appliance and software supplier at No. 152, grew at 62% with its products offering protection against identity theft, intruders, hackers, malicious software and viruses.

In the category of $30 million to $100 million in revenue, Smith Micro Software, with its communications software for the wireless industry, is the leader with revenue growth of 169%. The Smith Micro product line spans multiple operating system platforms, including Windows, Pocket PC, Macintosh, Palm, Unix and Linux, and its file compression covers JPEG, MPEG and MP3 platforms; the firm’s StuffIt® product is a de facto industry standard. (Smith Micro has moved up 175 positions in four years on the Software 500.) Acronis, with storage management and disk imaging software, reached 255 with 150% growth. Aztecsoft Ltd., at No. 266 with 99% growth, is finding success with its full-lifecycle product engineering services for customers in the Fortune 500 as well as many software product companies.

Omniture, at No. 210, grew at an 87% clip, finding success with its focus on online business optimization in many industries, including automotive, business-to-business (B2B), education, entertainment, financial services, retail and telecommunications. (Omniture has risen 200 positions in the last four years of the Software 500.) QlikTech International, the business intelligence success story out of Sweden, saw 79% growth and reached No. 268. EPAM Systems Inc., the software engineering outsourcing provider with development centers in Russia, Hungary, Belarus, and the Ukraine, grew 75% to reach No. 227. (EPAM has moved up 128 positions in four years on the Software 500.) And SafeBoot Corp., with its mobile data security focus, grew 70% to reach No. 275.

In the $10 million to $30 million revenue range, J.L. Halsey Corp., offering technology products for marketers, makes a dramatic entry with growth of more than 1,000% to reach No. 310. The company in 2005 acquired Lyris and EmailLabs, and in 2006 acquired ClickTracks and Hot Banana, to show dramatic growth. VFA, Inc., at No. 320, also showed dramatic growth of more than 300%, on the strength of its capital planning and asset management products. Apptix, with on-demand messaging and collaboration, found traction with 143% growth to reach No. 326.

System Integration Services/IT Consulting

Of the companies in this sector above $1 billion in revenue, the growth for LogicaCMG was fueled in part by acquisitions including Unilog, the French IT service firm, and WM-data, the Swedish IT consulting firm. The company is winning many types of outsourcing contracts as well. Cognizant Technology Solutions saw growth of 61%, doing well with its focus on application maintenance services, data warehousing, software development and integration. Most of the company’s development centers and employees are in India. Satyam Computer Services Ltd. grew 38% to reach $1.1 billion, with strengths in offshoring and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) practice. Infosys Technologies Ltd. grew at 35%, winning with its focus on the convergence of business and technology strategy.

Of companies in this sector at $100 million to $1 billion, Perficient, Inc. grew the fastest at 66% to reach No. 160, partly due to acquisitions, including the former Bay Street Solutions of San Francisco. Perficient emphasizes domain expertise and small project teams. India-based Sonata Software Ltd. grew 50% to reach No. 178, with its range of IT services offerings and Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Level 5 designation, the highest software engineering designation possible. Patni Computer Systems grew 29% to reach No. 72, and Sapient Corp. also grew 29% to reach No. 87.

Application Development

Of companies over $1 billion citing application development as their primary sector, Dassault Systemes had the best results, with growth of 38%. The company, based in France, focuses on engineering, design, and product application lifecycle management. Of companies between $100 million and $1 billion, Sweden-headquartered Telelogic stands out this year with 38% growth. With its DOORS requirements management products and Tau design products, the company is known for supporting advanced software development. In 2007, Telelogic agreed to be acquired by IBM, which plans to merge it with products it acquired through Rational Software. Also showing impressive growth is Borland Software Corp., growing 10% to reach No. 111 on the strength of its focus on the Java development market and Web-based application integration software. Borland’s acquisition of software quality assurance provider Segue Software in April 2006 helped fuel its growth.

In the category of $30 million to $100 million, MKS Inc. stands out with 17% growth to reach No. 256 as its application lifecycle management focus pays off. Among companies with up to $30 million in revenue, DefenseWeb Technologies grew 53% to reach No. 373; the company delivers custom software for the U.S. Department of Defense. NetSol Technologies grew 50% to reach No. 340; the custom development house also has an SEI-CMM Level 5 designation. And WhereScape, Inc. grew 56% to reach No. 445; the company offers an integrated development environment for building data warehouse applications.

Financial Applications

Of the companies with more than $1 billion in revenue from the 25 companies citing financial applications as their primary business sector, The Sage Group plc saw the most impressive growth, with 30% higher revenue in 2006 over 2005. UK-based Sage, at No. 34, has grown by acquisition over the years and has divisions targeting small and mid-market firms with a range of offerings. In 2006, the company added to its construction and real estate products with the acquisitions of Master Builder from Intuit and Contractor Anywhere, Inc. Growing at 15% to reach No. 28 was Intuit, Inc., which continues to acquire as well as divest. Best known for the brand names of Quicken for personal finance, QuickBooks for small business accounting, and TurboTax for consumer tax preparation, Intuit has also moved into property management software, credit processing and online banking.

At $100 million to $1 billion, CODA plc saw 24% growth to reach No. 183. CODA’s products cover accounting, procurement, reporting and analysis for medium-to-large B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) segments. Blackbaud, Inc., which saw 15% growth to reach No. 145, provides financial, fundraising and administrative products for non-profit organizations and schools. Blackbaud’s 2006 growth was assisted by its acquisition of Campagne Associates, provider of fundraising software and services. Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., growing 14% to reach No. 78, continues to provide assistance to banks and credit unions with in-house and outsourced computer systems.

At less than $100 million in revenue, RDM Corp. grew 32% to reach No. 321, winning with its image management products for electronic payment processing, document imaging and image processing. Fundtech Ltd. grew 15% to reach No. 202, finding success with its products supporting electronic payment process, foreign exchange settlements and cash management for banks. WowTools, Inc. makes the list at No. 459 on the strength of 68% growth in its line of advisory software for mortgage loan officers.

Security Tools/Systems

Symantec Corp. is the leader in this category, with a 60% increase in revenue for the ranking year of 2006, to rise to No. 20. Its aggressive acquisition strategy continues; after it purchased Veritas for $11 billion in 2006, the company added BindView Development for its network management products, and IMlogic for its instant messaging products. Early in 2007, Symantec acquired Altiris for its asset management software. Very impressive growth was also registered by Gemalto NV — 51% growth — to reach No. 36. The company was formed in 2006 by the combination of Axalto from Schlumberger and Gemplus International to focus on digital security.

Between $100 million and $1 billion, Secure Computing Corp. stands out with 62% growth to reach No. 152 on the strength of its enterprise gateway security products for the most mission-critical environments. Also, Finland-based F-Secure, Inc. grew 46% to reach No. 184, finding buy-in with consumers and businesses with its Internet security focus and protection against viruses and other threats. Websense, with its products to help businesses monitor and control how employees can access the Internet, grew 20% to reach No. 149.

At less than $100 million, Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. grew 57% to reach No. 198, drawing on its focus on software digital rights management (DRM), USB-based authentication and secure Web gateways. SafeBoot Corp., with its concentration on mobile data security, grew 39% to reach No. 275. And Fiberlink Communications Corp., providing remote access for corporate networks, grew 61% to reach No. 303.

Business Intelligence/Analytics

In the over-$1 billion bracket, SAS Institute Inc. is the leader, growing 12% to reach No. 33 and continue its leadership in data warehousing, data mining, and data analysis software. In 2006, SAS acquired Veridiem to gain marketing resource management products, and it launched a network of resellers and distributors in 2006. Business Objects grew 16% to reach No. 47, building on its suite of data integration, performance management, and query and analysis applications for measuring a range of results, including profitability and sales effectiveness. Business Objects acquired Firstlogic in 2006, to add data quality and mail management products.

From $100 million to $1 billion in revenue, Verint Systems Inc. registered 45% growth to reach No. 98. The firm provides products for communications interception, video surveillance and business intelligence. Verint acquired Mercom Systems in 2006 to gain products used to record and evaluate interactions with customer services representatives in call centers. In 2007, Verint acquired Witness Systems.

For companies below $100 million in revenue, QlikTech International surged with 79% growth to reach No. 268. The Sweden-based company started out with a tool for analysis of multidimensional tables, which led to development of a patented, in-memory associative technology that makes the tool easy to use. Applix, Inc., with its business performance management focus, grew at a 41% clip to reach No. 252. (Applix has since agreed to become acquired by Cognos.) Another impressive growth number, 24% to reach No. 220, was achieved by Callidus Software, Inc., supplier of enterprise incentive management software for managing compensation and commission programs. Last but not least, Global Software Inc. turned in 25% growth to reach No. 371, with its applications for global ERP systems based on Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheet.

Customer Relationship Management/Call Center

Segment leader Acxiom Corp. saw 9% growth to reach No. 45. The company defines its market as customer information management; its products aim to help companies improve employee acquisition and retention, increase collections, reduce fraud and improve customer satisfaction.

In the $100 million to $1 billion category, salesforce.com achieved 76% growth to reach No. 109. The company’s aggressive moves into on-demand applications, its software platform for CRM integration, and its online service for sharing applications are paying off. salesforce.com made its first acquisition in 2006, of Sendia, provider of wireless software delivery tools. RightNow Technologies also did well, with 27% growth to reach No. 181. The company is tuned to enhancing the customer experience across the sales, support and marketing units of its client companies, now numbering approximately 1,800. Webex Communications, supplier of Web conferencing services, saw 23% growth to reach No. 95. The company was acquired in May 2007 by Cisco for approximately $3.2 billion; it now operates as a Cisco subsidiary.

In CRM firms under $100 million, Unica Corp., concentrating on Internet marketing and Web analytics, saw 30% growth to reach No. 205. KANA Software Inc. saw 25% growth to reach No. 250; the firm’s customer service management products span communication via e-mail, telephone, wireless devices and websites. Also showing impressive growth is Astute Solutions, growing 43% to reach No. 383, with its focus on interaction and relationship management products for the B2C market.

John P. Desmond is editor of Software Magazine and softwaremag.com. Write to him at: jdesmond@softwaremag.com.

 

[ENTERPRISE] Global software market to reach 214.8 bln euros in 2006, 270 bln in 2008

June 28th, 2005

Deutsche Bank Research shared their forecast on global software sales. The market generated 190.1 bln euros in 2004, will grow to 214.8 bln euros in 2006 and reach 270 bln euros in 2008.

Global software sales forecast
Region	2004	2006	2008
World	190.1	214.8	270
USA	84.7	96.6	125
Germany	15.4	17.1	21.3
Eastern Europe	2	2.5	4.1
Source: Deutsche Bank Research