Open Source Value Addition in SaaS
Image via Wikipedia Stuart Cohen, writing on Business Week, declares that Open Source business model is broken (See Techmeme discussion). For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to the software industry lately, I have some bad news. The open-source business model is broken. He argues that Open Source companies are struggling because they could not [...]
Twitter and Yammer – Growth vs. Revenue
The New York Times presents the perfect showcase for what I've been preaching in my recession / business models mini-series here: turn to businesses stop poking around, create a valuable service charge for it (yes, revenue is not a crime) The showcase compares Twitter vs. Yammer and their categorically different approaches to business. Twitter is [...]
Would You Spend Your Lunch Money on a Web 2.0 Service?
Today I’m continuing a mini-series started 3 weeks ago with the intro: How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession which I wrote before the bottom fell out of all markets in the world, and recession-doom-talk became popular. Since one of the key conclusions in the first piece was for software startups to turn towards business, [...]
Google Releases New Zoho Service: Mail with Offline Support
Yes, you read it right: the first announcement of Zoho Mail’s general availability, with Google Gears-based offline support did not come from Zoho, but from the Google Gears team, which released this video discussing Zoho’s use of Google Gears, synchronization, the Marketplace and a lot more a bit prematurely: Somewhat used to it (see TechCrunch [...]
Cloudy News from Startup-Land
Just because I wrote How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession doesn’t mean I’m naive enough to declare that all SaaS businesses are recession-proof – they just have a better model to weather the storm, which is now inevitable. VC Preps Portfolio Companies for Survival Mode OM Malik, who is now a VC Partner himself [...]
Free is Dead, Long Live Freemium
3 weeks ago we launched CloudAve in turbulent times, so barely a week later I ended up writing about How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession. The summary: go where the money is, and that’s businesses (“Enterprise” vs. consumer, even if it means small business) deliver value – useful functionality that improves business charge for [...]
How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession
Are we heading into Recession? The “Big R” talk of early this year quickly subsided, economic growth returned, the markets appeared to vindicate the optimists. US Presidential Candidate John McCain repeatedly said the economy was fundamentally strong… until just days ago, when he quickly switched to declaring a crisis. The Wall Street Journal says we’re [...]
Welcome to CloudAve – and Thank You, Harry
We must be a crazy bunch on a suicide mission. Why else would we launch a new blog focused on Cloud Computing and Business, when it’s just a fad that will collapse in two years? Harry Debes, CEO of Lawson Software is a respected Enterprise Software industry veteran, but I’m afraid for all his achievements he’ll [...]
