Archive for September, 2009

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Tuesday’s Tip: Call Vendors On Their Bluff About “Rev-Rec” And Software Maintenance Contracts

Published on September 29, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Vendor Sales Reps Keep Using An Age Old Excuse Out Of Habit

Many organizations start their Q4 software maintenance renewals process in September.  This has led to a flurry of emails and phone calls about revenue recognition (a.k.a. “rev-rec”) rules for software maintenance contracts.   Apparently, both customers and vendor sales reps suffer from mass confusion on this issue.  The result – a conservative but inaccurate stance from sales reps who use pat answer number 1 and tell existing customers that they can’t discount their software maintenance because of rev-rec rules.  For good measure, they usually throw out all the real official sounding terms around AICPA Statement of Position (SOP) No. 97-2 and VSOE.  To customers, this reminds them of technical gobbleydegook and they glaze over this issue about software revenue recognition in despair.

However what’s true for how rev-rec works for license fees does not apply in most cases for software maintenance and support because:

  • Maintenance and support fees are adjunct or known as separate from license fees. Maintenance contracts may be based on license fee costs but these fees should be recognized as a separate stream of revenue.  More granular accounting will be required when licenses are bundled with one or more years of pre-paid maintenance, but the vendor should be able to carve out a value for this.
  • Post contract customer support (PCS) or what we call maintenance and support is ratable. Maintenance fees are recognized over the life of a contract.  For example, if you got a 1 year contract, then that’s all you impact, not the entire license basis as some vendor sales reps would have you believe.

The Bottom Line – Call The Bluff And Ask The Sales Rep To Show You How SOP-72 Is Applied*

Countering false claims on rev-rec will provide a key weapon in reducing maintenance fees in contract negotiations.  Challenge the vendor to explain their rationale.  When successful, clients can then ask the vendor to base maintenance fees on a reduced total account value without jeopardizing the vendor’s insistence to hold to a maintenance fee percentage.

Your POV.

Have you encountered the rev-rec song and dance?  How have you pushed back on this issue?  Did you find any success with this technique?  Need some guidance?  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com.

*standard disclaimers apply.  always check with your legal counsel and procurement experts before taking any action.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Quarterly Financial Tracker: Q2 CY 2009 SaaS Vendors and Purpose Built Solutions Rack Up Big Wins

Published on September 28, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Most on-premise vendor continue to slip into significant YoY losses in license revenue and overall revenues.  Meanwhile, economic conditions continue to favor SaaS, best-of-breeds, and purpose built solutions. Major themes in the 2009 Calendar Year Q2 include:

  • Economic conditions drive demand for best of breed and point solutions delivered by SaaS deployment.  Consequently, SaaS vendors posted spectacular double digit YoY gains.  Taleo (29.78%) led the pack followed by Blackboard (21.92%), and SalesForce (20.14%).
  • Despite subscription gains for SaaS, professional service revenues dropped as client demand for rapid implementation and discounts in delivery cut deployment costs.  Many vendors reported shorter deployment times.
  • Specialty on-premise vendors JDA Software (8.38%) and IFS (6.00%) delivered significant gains as their purpose built solutions reflect the demand for deeply verticalized software offerings.
  • On-premise vendors continue to rely on maintenance revenues to stabilize or offset huge losses in YoY license revenues.  Customers are nearing a flash point over the high cost for maintenance.  Vendors will need to quickly demonstrate value or take a hit in maintenance renewals.
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Software Insider Index® Q2 CY 2009 SaaS Vendors

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Software Insider Index® Q2 CY 2009 On Premise Vendors

The Bottom Line – Worsening Economic Conditions Favor Purpose Built Solutions

Continued economic pressures force customers to choose best of breed and purpose built solutions.  SaaS vendors appear to be the beneficiary as the overall business model aligns with client pain points.  On-premise vendors will also win as they reduce the cost of entry and provide effective price points for purpose built solution modules in demand by clients.  With very little hope for a recovery in 2009, vendors will have to adjust their go-to-market strategies to deal with waning deal sizes.  It’ll take more than a hat trick in 2009 to stabilize revenues.  With 4 months to go, vendors should rethink their 2010 strategies to address price points, financing options, and module availability.

Your POV.

As an end user, have you found the deal process to have tipped in favor of the buyer?  Do you continue SaaS solutions with the same level of comfort as on-premise.  As a software vendor, do you feel you have the right go-to-market strategy for 2010?  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com for any assistance in contract negotiations with your vendor or the development of a software licensing and pricing strategy for 2010.

* Not responsible for any math errors or erroneous revenue information.  Calendar year estimates based on the quarter nearest the calendar year.  Exchange rates as of September 25th, 2009.  Not responsible for currency flux.  Please read the quarterly filings yourself =)

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Vendor Event: Ariba North American User Conference

Published on September 27, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

screen-shot-2009-09-27-at-114034-pm

Title: Vendor Event: Ariba North American User Conference
Location: The Gaylord Opryland Conference and Resort, Nashville, TN
Link out: Click here

Start Date: 2009-10-11
End Date: 2009-10-14

Registration Link

North American User Conference
Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
Nashville, TN
October 11 – 14, 2009

Overview

The Ariba User Conference will provide you with two days of networking with other Ariba users as well as invaluable opportunities to interact with Ariba product managers, engineers, and solution strategists. From Ariba enablement team leaders to procurement analysts, you will gain the first-hand information you need to be successful in spend management. If you are being charged with delivering results that take your company to new heights in spend management, you can\’t afford to miss the annual Ariba User Conference.

Why should you attend?

The Ariba User Conference is a forum for users to come together and discuss what\’s new and what\’s next for Ariba with respect to their solution, region or industry. You will hear tips on how to better prepare for the next major release and share best practices on solution usage. Ariba will also offer an optional training track at the end of the conference on topics ranging from Sourcing Event Management (Basic and Advanced courses), Contract Management Professional, and Spend Visibility.

This conference is a must-attend for all users to learn, share, and grow with their Ariba spend management solution. This is a unique opportunity to meet with Ariba users from all geographies, solutions and industries, and you do not want to miss it. If you have attended Ariba User Conferences in the past, you know how invaluable the experience is. The upcoming Ariba User Conference will provide more time over the course of two days to connect with an even-wider audience than ever before.

Who should attend?

* Buyers
* Analysts
* Implementation Team
* Technical Staff
* Suppliers
* Department Managers
* Educators and Trainers of Ariba Applications
* Business Owners

User Conference Benefits

* Gain Insight into the Ariba Roadmap Align your spend management plans with Ariba’s direction by hearing from our lead developers, product managers and customer support group.
* Learn New Spend Management Strategies Application tips and tricks; implementation strategies; training practices and upgrade best practices, with a focus on the next major release. Get new ideas from your peers through breakout sessions, panel discussions, social events, and networking throughout the conference.
* Troubleshoot Issues with Technology Experts Bring your issues and questions to the technical support area. Experts will help you work through your problems at the \”Ask Engineering\” stand.
* Share Your Feedback Meet with Ariba product support staff to discuss any of your product support needs while sharing your feedback at the same time. The team leaders will be present onsite at the \”Ask Product Support\” stand.
* Collaborate with Ariba Solutions Experts through Networking and Informal Breakfast Roundtable Discussions Meet with solutions owners and address questions and topics dear to you and your organization over the two days of the conference.

Space is limited and registration is on a first-come, first-served basis!

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News Analysis: Microsoft Dynamics AX Acquires IP For Four Industry Solutions

Published on September 22, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Microsoft Dynamics Demonstrates Continued Industry Solution Investment

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Today’s announcement focuses on the Microsoft Dynamics AX product line.  Key facts include:

  • IP acquisition only. Microsoft acquires the intellectual property (IP) for three four industry solutions.  These solutions build on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform.  Microsoft has not acquired the companies or personnel.   Fullscope, Inc.; Computer Generated Solutions, Inc.; LS Retail, and To-Increase (Columbus IT) remain fully independent and partners within the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem.

    POV    :  Unlike other mergers and acquisitions, Microsoft embeds proven and market tested solutions into the core code base.  IP acquisitions provide immediate value without the typical hassles of post-merger integration.  Placing the IP into the main Microsoft Dynamics AX code line ensures consistency.
  • Commitment to upper mid-market requirements. Mid-market sized businesses require deeper levels of vertical and industry functionality.  Today’s announcement demonstrates a commitment to expanding manufacturing, service industries, and retail capabilities.

    POV: Last mile solutions make or break upper-mid-market organizations.  Creating a broader set of common industry capabilities that sit on top of core Microsoft Dynamics AX accelerates both Microsoft and its partners ability to extend vertical capabilities.  Theses solutions come from partners with proven records in delivering to customers.

Acquisition Focuses On Industry IP From Proven Partners

Partner IP selected for acquisition represents the most successful and recognized solutions within the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem.  Customers can immediately access professional services and process manufacturing capabilities.  Retail solutions will be shortly announced.  Key details for the three industries include:

  • Process manufacturing from Fullscope, Inc. The process manufacturing solution encompasses the entire process manufacturing life cycle and addresses engineer to build.  Key verticals supported include chemicals, food & beverage, life sciences & pharmaceuticals, pulp & paper, and primary metals.  Fullscope garners many Microsoft awards including Partner of the Year for 2007 to 2009.
  • Professional services from Computer Generated Solutions, Inc. The professional services solution provides project based solution (PBS) capabilities that track time and expense, improve project profitability, and optimize resource utilization.  Key verticals supported include advertising & marketing, architecture & engineering, government contracting, legal services, and management & IT consulting services.  CGS was recognized as a 2007 Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle member.

  • Retail solutions from LS Retail EHF and To-Increase (Columbus IT)*. The LS Retail  solutions focus on delivering end to end retail and POS integration to Microsoft Dynamics AX.  Key features include 6-level item hierarchies, auto item creation, pricing management, purchasing, distribution, loyalty programs, concession management, and hand held support.  The solution is optimized for fashion retailers though other verticals have successfully deployed this product.

    To-Increase A/S, the software development arm of Columbus IT, provides Retail Chain Management solutions.  Key features include both front office (CRM) and back office integration.  The solution includes features such as centralized campaign management, pricing management, inter-company trade, integrated return management, credit risk management, multi-currency, and online Axapta POS integration.  Columbus IT has seen succes in key industries such as Furniture, Gas Stations, Groceries, Healthcare & Cosmetic, and Sports and Fashion.*

The Bottom Line – Microsoft Dynamics AX Users And Partners Can Expect More IP Acquisitions

Building off the experiences from Industry Builders Initiative (IBI) and Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD), the latest strategy by the Microsoft Dynamics team to accelerate industry vertical innovation for customers and partners provides a pragmatic approach.  Customers expect Microsoft to take the lead in orchestrating common industry capabilities while also providing a stable platform for core Microsoft Dynamics AX capabilities.  Acquiring the IP of proven solutions in the market plays to Microsoft’s strengths by leveraging the ecosystem for innovation while embedding key common business processes.  The result – a more predictable roadmap and a single architecture for customers and partners to expand on.  Pending the success of these IP acquisitions, one can expect more to come as this becomes the model to most efficiently deliver on industry vertical innovation.

Your POV

As an SMB, do you feel Microsoft has the right level of depth in its industry offerings?  Are you in the midst of an SMB ERP vendor selection and are confused by all the choices?  As a partner, do you feel this approach is fair to your investments?  Look forward to your comments or hearing from you.  Post your comments or send a direct email to r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

* (added 9:23 am GMT-8:00)

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Microsoft’s Office Web Apps Is “Me Too” To Google Docs –Yet Gives Enterprise Options for Collaboration and Security

Published on September 17, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy and R “Ray” Wang, who maintains a focus on Enterprise Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of the emerging technology, this analysis is also cross-posted on Jeremiah’s blog.


Microsoft responds to Google- Zoho Threat
Microsoft gets serious about collaboration using the web and its office products. On the consumer side, it’s just catching up to Google Docs, Zoho, and whatever collaboration start-up emerges. On the enterprise side, this could give internal teams real-time collaboration tools –and close security gaps through an on-premise solution. Regardless, IT must develop a collaboration strategy or run the risk of being blind-sided by business units developing it without them.

Microsoft Office Now Web-Based
Enterprises seek unified solutions for web-based applications that complement their desktop productivity tools. Today’s tools often do not work seamlessly across on-premise, on-demand, mobile, and disconnected scenarios. The delivery of Microsoft Desktop Apps just under a year after the October 28th, 2008 PDC announcement in LA puts Microsoft back in contention among corporate user who have been actively piloting alternative solutions from Google, Zoho, and others. Microsoft Office Web apps includes web-based versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. In addition, Microsoft delivers an online document management system with permissions called SkyDrive, which is advertising supported. These set of features are available to both consumers who have Windows Live accounts as well as to enterprises who have purchased the Office Volume License, who can install an on-premise version on internal serves for intranet usage.

Ray’s Take For the CIO
Enterprises will benefit from a familiar solution that delivers enterprise security and collaboration. For intranet deployments and mobile, there are three key use cases that standout:

  1. Secured experience behind the firewall. Microsoft delivers an on-premise install that does not expose corporate data to consumer products such as Google docs.
  2. Improved real-time collaboration. Consumer teams can now use these light weight web-based tools for near-real time collaboration. Apparently, this is Microsoft’s first real time collaboration tool, as we know Microsoft Sharepoint often acts more like an asynchronous DMS and CMS.
  3. Lighter mobile footprint. Browser based docs give the mobile warrior less resource limitations on laptops or other mobile devices.

Jeremiah’s Take For the CMO
CMOs should be aware of the broad ranging changes of consumer behavior, but should recognize this is just catch up to Google docs which has beginnings as far back as 2006. Despite this “me too” there’s a few distinguishing points that make this announcement stand out:

  1. Gives consumers the option over Google Docs. Consumers and certainly stakeholders in B2B prefer the no-nonsence experience of corporate issued Microsoft office. The upside for Microsoft is the spreadsheets appear to have more features than Google sheets, although some of the advanced functionality of web-based excel is not available. As a result, users will have to use the desktop client to perform advanced features like pivot tables.
  2. May have better performance –attracting consumers. Microsoft makes claims its service will be faster than the somewhat slow Google docs products, which we believe as we’ve noticed latency in real-time collaboration in Google Docs. (which we’re using for this blog post)
  3. Microsoft’s big footprint will accelerate adoption. A research survey conducted over a year ago suggests that Google Docs was used by just a 1% of the US consumer base, and Microsoft Word had over 51% adoption. Expect Microsoft’s large footprint in enterprise combined with over 375 million users of Hotmail and Live to push these web based apps to the mainstream –expect integration into other MS web products

IT Must Develop A Collaboration Strategy –Or Business Units Will Do It Without You
Enterprise IT must develop a collaboration program, as the advent of consumer collaboration tools will quickly outpace ITs ability to play catch up. As employees continue to create collaborative workspace in the public web, data can become mishandled, not accounted for, or orphaned. To avoid these risks, we recommend that:

  1. Enterprises should take inventory of the vast teams using consumer based collaboration tools, evaluate their usage and decide if an enterprise solution should be available for internal collaboration features.
  2. IT leadership shouldn’t shut down the firewall and block third-party collaboration tools, as work is often being done at the edges of the company with business units working with partners, customers, and prospects. Instead, focus on providing secure tools within the enterprise for collaboration, then roll-out proper awareness campaigns, training, and ongoing support for company supported technologies.
  3. IT departments should be proactive resources to business units and provide them with the right tools, training, and resources. IT departments that are reactive or clamp down on business units needs for collaboration will find employees finding work-arounds on consumer collaboration tools.
  4. Enterprises will want to reevaluate how Microsoft Web Apps work within existing volume licensing agreements and enterprise agreements, especially as many have considered alternatives during contract negotiations.

Below are screenshots provided by Microsoft to us of the web-based applications: Word, Powerpoint, OneNote and Excel. It’s not clear if the infamous “Clippy 2.0” will re-emerge –we hope not

Microsoft Word Web AppMicrosoft PowerPoint Web AppMicrosoft OneNote Web AppMicrosoft Excel Web App

Your POV

Ready to consider Microsoft?  Still attracted to Google from a cost perspective.  We’d love to hear your comments and views.   Reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers – August/September 2009

Published on September 16, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Congratulations to all!  Good to see that the job scenarios have improved as a number of individuals made organizational changes and promotions.  As always, thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, and we’ve worked together in the past, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Jim Anderson is now Sr VP Client Services Operations at Analysts International.  Recent executive roles include serving as a Partner at Element Consulting Group, EVP at Lawson Software, Group VP – Services at PeopleSoft, and Group VP at J.D. Edwards

Kamal Ajitsaria is now Chief Consultant – Manufacturing Solutions at Cognizant Technology Solutions.  Other professional service roles include business head – manufacturing solutions at Geometric Ltd., Head of SAP Adaptive Manufacturing Practice at TCS.

Martha Bennett became Business Development Director at eBenchmarkers in May 2009.  Martha’s a Star Analyst in the financial services industry with roles including FS Research Director at Datamonitor, VP, Research Director at Forrester, VP at Giga Information Group, and Head of Advanced Technology at Prudential.

René Bonvanie is now Vice-President of Worldwide Marketing at Palo Alto Networks.  Renee has served various senior marketing roles at Serena Software, Inc., Salesforce.com, SAP, Business Objects, Veritas Software, Oracle, Ingres Corporation, and Relational Technology

Shankar Borkar became Head – IT Management Consulting at L&T Infotech in July 2009.  Previous roles over the past 5 years include other senior management positions as the GM and Center Head for the Manufacturing business unit and JGM.

Samuel Bright is now Associate – Tech M&A at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.  Sam served as a research analyst at Forrester prior to graduating at Harvard Business School.

Paul Ellis became Director, Marketing at CA in June 2009.  Paul’s served various roles at CA.  Other industry positions include senior marketing manager at Selectica and Director of Marketing at IBM.

Lindsay Euller is now Manager, Product Strategy at Ultimate Software.  Prior roles include Sr. Account Manager and Team Leader at Forrester Research and Account Manager at WGBH.

Killian Evers became Principal User Experience Architect at PayPal in April 2009.  Other roles include senior manager at eBay/Paypal, Director of Program Management and Group Manager of Program Management at Oracle.

John Ferguson became Operations Director at SynCom Electronics in June 2009.  John previously served as the CIO at Optical Cable Corporation, President and Foudner of IntegriSoft LLC, and Director of Channel Systems and Strategy and Microsoft Business Solutions – Great Plains.

Mette Søs Gottlieb is now Partner at Herman & Company. Sos has served as Nordic Director at Forrester Research, Senior Consultant at Telenor, Client Sales Executive at EDS, Customer Account Manager at Baan Company. and Senior Consultant at Maconomy.

Lenley Hensarling is now Vice President for Business Development at stealthy startup C3.  Lenley brings deep technology experiences with roles such as Group Vice President at Oracle, VP of Product Strategy at JD Edwards/PeopleSoft, Senior Vice President at Enterworks, and Vice President of Engineering at Novell.

Kip Heuertz became Principal Consultant at Market Progress International in July 2009.

Tuyen Ho became VP Sales & Marketing at Sakhr Software in June 2009.  She served as the Vice-President for Dial Directions for the past 2 years prior to the acquisition by Sakhr Software.  Other senior positions include VP of channel sales at Voxify and VP for client services at Personify.

Chi Hoang is now Data Architect at Cisco. Chi’s a software development pro with experience at Netflix as the Business Intelligence Lead at Netflix, Senior Principal Consultant at Oracle, and Software Development Manager at Oracle.

Daniel Hong is now Lead Analyst at Ovum.  Daniel now heads up Ovum’s Customer Interaction (CI) practice. Prior to the acquisition by Ovum, he served as a lead analyst at Datamoniotor and prior to that he served as a Research Associate at Columbia Institute for Tele-Information.

Kunal Kant became Consultant at Capgemini in June 2009.  Kunal served Business Development APJ and Project Manager roles with Wipro Technologies.

Marshall Lager became Managing Principal at Third Idea Consulting LLC in June 2009.  Marshall’s been an active voice and thought leader in the CRM and press community with roles including a 4 year run as a Senior Editor at CRM Magazine and contributing editor at Vault.com.

Anne Lapointe became Media Consultant at Yellow Pages Group in April 2009.  Ms Lapointe’s served many roles including Director of Industry Analyst Relations at Bell Canada, Director of Industry Analyst Relations at Equant, Director of Marketing Communications at Global One, and Director of Marketing Communications at France Telecom North America.

David Levine became General Counsel at Japan America Society of Washington, DC in June 2009.  Mr. Levine currently is a Principal at Groom Law Group and the Director at DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative.

Warren Lewis is now Legislative Director for for NJ Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo. Previous influencer relations roles include associate director at Capgemini and account executive at Mindstorm Communications.

Sean Loiselle is now Sales Executive at Salesforce.com.  Previously, he served as the General Manager for Oracle‘s Financial Services Industry business unit.  Other roles include Senior Director, Human Capital Management Solutions at Oracle.

Pete Marston is now Web Strategy Consultant at Verndale.  Prior to Verndale, Pete served as senior analyst covering CRM at Forrester Research.  Other roles include Partner at Horstman Builders, Program Manager at Molecular, and Senior Consultant at KPMG Consulting / Peat Marwick.

Phil Morris is now Business Technical Analyst, Web Portal Team at McDonald’s. Phil’s served other roles in IT at McDonald’s including Business Technical Analyst — Enterprise Architecture and IT Research Analyst — Global IT Strategy over the past decade.

Nancie Norman is now Client Development Director at AnswerLab.  Nancie’s served senior sales roles as an Account Manager at Forrester Research, Account Executive at OneSource Information Services , and Account Executive at Giga Information Group

Michael O’Kelly is now Owner at SysTechPlus.  Prior to starting out his own consulting, Michael spent almost 11 years with International Aid as their IT director.  In July 1, 2009, the non-profit ceased operations.

Dominic Pannell is now an independent Consultant.  Former roles include heading up UK Analyst Relations at Hill and Knowlton, serving as a Principal Consultant at Serendipp Ltd, and consulting for Sunesis Analyst Relations.

Jyoti Kharb Phogat became ES – Sales Effectiveness Manager at Infosys in May 2009.  Prior roles include AM- Marketing at Infosys, marketing manager at Pronto Networks, and marketing at Indscape Softech Pvt Ltd.

Udayraj Prabhu became Head of Supply Chain Development & CNO Planning at Marico in June 2009.  Mr Prabhu has built a 9 year career at Marico with roles as Head of Business Applications, Head of Buying (Edible Oils), Manager of ERP, and Manager of buying

Sarah Reed joined BMC Software as the Lead Analyst Relations Manager in August 2009.  She most recently served at Eloqua as the Director of Corporate Communications.  She brings a wealth of experience from similar roles at Vignette and IONA Technologies.

Jaci Robbins is now PR/AR/Marketing consultant at JR Communications.  Previous marketing roles include work with companies such as UST Global, Entropia, and Telogic.

J Rollins became Vice President, Retail Sales at RedPrairie in July 2009. J’s 25 year tech company management experiences include tours of duty as the CEO at Ascend Software Inc, VP of netASPx Inc, and President and CEO at SalesTactics, Inc.

Subhojit Roye is now North America – Alliances Management at Infosys BPO.  Mr. Roye brings significant professional services expertise with roles as a Director at Trianz, Practice Manager – North American Enterprise Apps at Wipro Technologies, Director at iGATE Global Solutions, Director of Oracle Business at Solix Systems, Inc. and Business Manager at Oracle Corporation.

Jeremy Suratt is now Product Design Manager at Aspen Technology. Jeremy brings a wealth of tech marketing experience serving as a Director for Technology Marketing at Infor, Solution Marketing Manager of Technology at SSA Global, Software Engineer at Marcam, and Technical Presales Consultant at Wonderware Solutions.

Katherine Teitler is now VP of Strategic Accounts at IANS. Ms. Teitler has served senior sales role including Senior Account Executive at izmocars, Forrester, Headhunter.net, and The Employment Guide.

David Anthony Wilkins is now a Managing Director at ICI in Dubai, UAE.  Previously roles include Senior Consultant at indigo – pure ICT recruitment solutions and Senior Contract Recruiter at Computer People

Lisa Whelan is now Business Development Consultant at Offbeat Guides.  Lisa provides business development, strategy, and marketing services in technology and consumer products with a focus on mobile and Social Media.

Alex Wong is now CIO at Endeca Technologies, Inc.. Previously, he served as the Vice President, Project Management Group, Information Technology at Eaton Vance

G. Oliver Young is now Senior Product Manager at Jive Software. Oliver served various research roles at Forrester looking at the technology industry including Web 2.0 and tech industry economics.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Event Report: 2009 Information Week 500

Published on September 15, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Insight From This Year’s IW 500 Shows Shifting Role Of The CIO And Technology Adoption

VIP cocktail reception at the IW 500Information Week 500 Gala Awards Dinner Information Week 500 Gala Awards - St. Regis, Monarch Beach, CAInformation Week 500 Awards Ceremony - St Regis, monarch beach, Rob Preston Up Close and Personal - Information Week 500-Information Week 250 Wall of Fame - St. Regis, Monarch Beach, CA

(Source: R Wang & Software Insider POV, Copyright © 2009  All rights reserved.)

Lots of lessons learned amidst the celebration of the leading innovators in IT at the Information Week 500.  In conversations with CIOs these past days, a few trends have emerged:

  • Companies less loyal to existing investments and vendors. Because budgets remain tight and drive most investment priorities, CIO’s are now open to new ideas that reduce operating costs — even if this means replacing existing investments.  CIO’s and IT leaders no longer hesitant to move away from established investments.  Conversations with a IW500 financial services CIO put it quite clear, “I don’t care how long we’ve used the stuff.  If it’s cheaper, I’m open to it.  Better and faster would be nice too”
  • Economic conditions put SaaS and cloud computing top of mind. CIO’s and IT leaders find new service offerings with faster deployment times, lower operating costs, or significant impact to the business users more attractive .  The adoption and interest has past the tipping point.   As one IW500 manufacturing CIO put it, “All the new stuff is going to be on SaaS.  The business wants it and we embrace it, even when our existing vendors tell us they will build that in the future.  We don’t have time to wait”
  • Realization that the CIO role continues to evolve. SaaS adoption now allows employees and business units make decisions on their own.  CIO’s must still find ways to secure these applications and ensure seamless integration.  Some CIO’s seek a single integrated approach, but most realize that their role has changed. A IW500 pharma CIO notes,” My role has changed from large ERP implementations or enterprise wide SOA to more vendor management, hybrid integration, and application development.”

Your POV
What are your organizations doing? Are you seeing similar trends?  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Jive and Radian6 Partner – Great For Business, But Could Fragment IT Systems

Published on by R "Ray" Wang

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki with my colleague Jeremiah Owyang whose focus is on customer strategy which encompasses social technologies. Together, we’re covering convergence of the emerging and incumbent technology system.  This entry is also cross-posted on his blog.

Jive Offers Brand Monitoring Using Radian 6 -Empowering Companies To Quickly Respond
Jive Software made an announcement that they’re now incorporating listening service Radian 6 into their community platform suite, they dub it Jive Market Engagement. This gives internal teams that manage brands, topics, or influencers to discuss, manage, and assign tasks to follow up with real world -and real-time market events. An example? A company selling headache relief medicine can quickly be alerted to conversations with mommy bloggers in the social sphere, discuss in an internal, private community powered by Jive, then decide on how to quickly take action before it escalates.

Currently, companies are doing this in a mish-mash of manual efforts using scraped together RSS feeds, Google alerts, and Twitter clients. The benefits of this partnership? Companies can now become more organized around the real-time web, develop a process to quickly respond and therefore be more reactive to customers. Yet, despite the automation upside to brand and customer management, this causes yet another disparate pool of customer data that IT departments will have to splice together -potentially giving customers a fragmented view. Companies should nod to this latest trend of social business software converging with existing company systems and develop an information strategy (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Companies can monitor and manage the discussions in their marketplace in Jive Market Engagement

Screenshot: Jive Market Engagement

(Source: Jive)

Macro Market Forces Foster New Trends In Adoption And Risk
Despite this announcement, there are greater trends at play that impact both business and IT side, be aware that:

  1. Diverse systems converging, resulting in greater speed but more complexity
    The push to improve customer intimacy, move to a proactive customer experience, and convergence of Web 2.0 with enterprise class social business apps, drives new models and solutions. We’re tracking this living breathing reef and see social software, CRM, brand monitoring, email, and mobile quickly converging.
  2. More “CRM” features being deployed, without involving the CIO
    Jive’s offering is really a customer relationship module in disguise, yet because of the web based offering, marketing can implement this pseudo-CRM solution without involving IT. We continue to see technology adopted from business units -often at the frustration of not getting on the IT road map during budget tightening times.
  3. Greater exposure to risk, as more siloed customer information fragments enterprise systems
    Being responsive to customers is ideal, but in the long run, it’s not truly effective if you can’t integrate it with your sales, service, or marketing systems. In the end, fragmenting customer data will result in disjointed user experiences for customers as separate departments will have disparate data for each customer.

Recommendations
Jeremiah (business side) and Ray (IT side) come from completely two different worlds’ speaking two different languages. Yet they both know that these new technologies are going to force IT and Marketing to quickly come together. Expect to see more joint-blog posts merging these two groups together, because customers don’t care what department you’re in -they just want their problems solved.

The Bottom Line – Ray’s Take For The CIO
Expect a proliferation of social media monitoring solutions to emerge with a tie back to CRM, eCommerce, project based solutions, and collaboration software. Disparate sources will create fractured customer experiences.  The single 360 degree view wil be assembled and reassembled.

  1. Find tools to aggregate these new channels and sources. Consider how these new social business software platforms will integrate back into data warehouses or customer interaction histories.
  2. Focus on data integration skill sets as process, data,meta data across hybrid deployment models. Data will be coming from a greater number of sources.  Data integration and master data management will play a role here.

The Bottom Line – Jeremiah’s Take For The CMO
Marketers should continue to be responsive to the real-time web, but quickly develop processes that involve other customer touchpoints such as support, service, and product development into the mix

  1. Don’t limit your responses to the corporate communication team and brand monitoring team -cascade this information quickly. While the discussions that will be had in Jive’s community platform will help to aid the customer triage problem, be sure to tie the process and data back to other customer facing teams. Remember, customers don’t care which department you are in.
  2. Use imported social data to create topic based aggregations. Looking forward, use the data that brand monitoring companies are unearthing and turn your product pages into trusted aggregations of conversations -not just static product pitches. Learn how future webpages will be more like collections of customer conversations.

Your POV

How are marketing teams and enterprise strategy teams working with each other to coordinate these investments?  Have you experienced this convergence?  What are your lessons learned?   Do you need help with choosing the right tools?  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.  Put the power of expert apps strategy and vendor selection advice to work or just drop us a line.

Related Resources

  • Jive has a slide show with details on the announcement, we’ve uploaded it here.
  • Salesforce.com CRM launches social features (we also collaborated on that piece)
  • Lithium also launched features into it’s platform that allow workflow of social content -similar concepts
  • We like Oliver Mark’s take on how this makes true impacts to business and the real world, he cites how media events can now be tracked -and managed from the toolset.
  • Read Write Web gives more color to the story and gives examples of how other companies are managing this.
  • This conceptual slideshow demonstrates how the emerging and incumbent systems are quickly merging on the “Reef”. (a more Web 2.0 emerging tech view)

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Siemens Cancels SAP Maintenance Contract

Published on September 12, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Potential Announcement of * Siemens cancellation represents a shift in mood by one of SAP’s most loyal customers

What’s been rumored for the past few months has now publicly been confirmed discussed.  Golem.de (Babelfish Translation in English) *Wiwo.de,(Wirtschaftswoche the German equivalent of BusinessWeek) (Babelfish Translation in English) reports that Siemens says SAP Tschüß (i.e. ciao, cheers, bye) in its September 12th posting.

According to the translated report, “Siemens is one of the largest SAP customers, reports the business magazine economic week (Wiwo): Over 160.000 Siemens coworkers used the software of SAP. For maintenance, to the support and regular software actualizations belong, require SAP 17 per cent of the license costs. For Siemens costs add up after analysts estimations each year on a middle two digit amount of millions.”

*What should be made clear here is that Siemens appears to have submitted its cancellation papers to SAP.  However, the company will most likely not be doing a rip and replace of its core systems. It’s just looking at alternatives for SAP maintenance or even maybe a better counter offer from SAP.

Third party maintenance vendors emerge from the woodwork

Of note, IBM, and HCL have been listed with Rimini Street as contenders for this third party maintenance (3PM) market.  SAP’s system integrators traditionally have shied away or have been rumored to be given strong signals not to provide alternative support options for their vendor partners.  To date, this has led to just one public offering from Rimini Street.  While the process requires significant investment in engineering and support resources, the contenders each bring significant capabilities to the table.  And according to some customers, several other providers have already been providing third party maintenance services for SAP in EMEA.

The bottom line – economic pressures will bring more enterprise software customers to consider (3PM)

Almost all SAP customers have end of year maintenance renewal terms.  As these organizations review their maintenance contracts going into 2010, it will be important to consider the role of third party maintenance in decisions.  Customers seek strategies to free funding up so they can address economic shortfalls and/or invest in innovation. But don’t expect vendors such as SAP to back off without a fight.  Beware of some tactics some vendors have used to cut customers off from the third party maintenance option:

  • Do not give away your third party maintenance rights. Review your contracts with your legal team for such similar anti competitive language.  Validate any suspicious terminology with the vendor
  • Avoid offers by sales reps to bundle contracts. Once bundled, you will lose the ability to choose what parts of the relationship you wish to change
  • Say “NO” to contracts that tie upgrade rights to current status of maintenance payments. Some blog readers report a new tactic emerging in the field where even after downloading upgrades to a perpetual license, some vendors are claiming you do not have such rights unless you are current on maintenance.  This flies in the face of the spirit and intent of a perpetual license.
  • Eliminate gag rule clauses in your contracts. Make sure you retain the freedom to work with third parties to assist in contract negotiations.  You’ll also want to have the right to discuss some benchmarking with peers and other user group members.

Your POV

Is your enterprise software contract up for renewal?  How has your vendor treated you to date?  Do you need assistance with negotiating such contacts?  Wonder why Neelie Kroes and the EU ( yes this is an election year) or the US Anti-trust team have not stood up for your consumer rights yet?  What are your user groups doing to assist you?  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.  Put the power of expert contract negotiation advice to work or drop us a line.

Related posts

20090912 Deal Architect – Vinnie Mirchandani “Don’t Cry For Me Germany”

20090912 Irregular Enterprise – Dennis Howlett “Siemens Cans SAP Support”

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

*Slight changes were made with some factual review input from multiple sources. (18:30 GMT – 8:00)

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Trends: What Are The Emerging Technologies And The Future Of Business?

Published on September 10, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Thanks to the 799 registrants and 458 attendees who participated in today’s webinar on The Future of Business.  There’s so much to cover across leadership, innovation, customer, and enterprise as we enter a more social, connected business world.   The key thing we learned today was just how interested everyone is about these converging trends that shape the future of business.  To succeed, we’ll have to move beyond interest and towards action.  For those who missed out, here are today’s slides:

The Future Of Business by Altimeter Group

View more presentations from Charlene Li.

Your POV

Keep the dialogue going.  Check out the #futurebiz tweets.  What do you see are the key trends?   When do you think we’ll get there? Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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