CHALLENGING TIMES FOR SOFTWARE VENDORS While designing, constructing, marketing, and selling software has never been easy, tomorrow and in the future it will be more difficult and demanding. There are many reasons and shifts in the marketplace that demand attention from all software vendors to protect their future—not just independent software vendors (ISVs), but all software vendors, large and small. Customers, technology shifts, and business pressures all contribute to these changes, so we will examine all of them. Customer demands and issues include the following: -
Greater efficiency—more performance for less money -
Greater return on investment (ROI) -
Flexible licensing and larger discounts on sales -
Longer life cyles for software—customers take longer to replace their software. -
Increased support without the increase in costs -
Guarantees on rapid error-free deployment The business pressures on corporations buying software include the following: -
Stalled markets and recession -
Shrinking IT budgets—less money to do more -
Increased competition, prices, and product offerings -
Reduced staffing levels—requests for higher IT salaries -
IT complexity at every turn Finally, the technology factors listed below compound this problem further. -
Introduction of major technology shifts every few years -
Greater shift to Web services and new styles of e-commerce -
Transition to open standards, less complexity -
Time limits on the utility if any technology product -
Underestimation of the importance of market research as a tool for software vendors—"know your market" -
Demise of long development cycles—rapid, iterative products win the day -
Variance in software developer productivity—some developers provide productivity in quantum proportions The business of creating new software, services and products in this new environment is difficult at best. It is more difficult if software vendors lack the necessary resources such as marketing, finance, and research and development to enable products to reach the marketplace. So part of the answer to the question "How can we survive?" is to learn to cooperate and collaborate. Form alliances and partner with other organizations in mutually beneficial relationships. Software vendors and ISVs can learn much from other industries that have learned to cooperate and collaborate with one another for the greater interest of all parties. Numerous examples are now legend. -
Banks cooperate on ATM withdrawals, which saves all banks money in facilities. They could cooperate on ATM deposits as well, as they do in the United Kingdom and Australia. -
The large newspapers USA Today and the Chicago Tribune cooperate with joint distribution and printing, even as they compete for readers and advertisers. -
FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service cooperate on mail carriage, and FedEx locates some of its boxes at post offices. -
Amazon.com and Toys 'R Us cooperate on an e-commerce infrastructure, because the toy retailer does not need online capability most of the year. |
