The story so far on getting users first, customers later
Just a recap of the conversation about how open source is changing the way people sell software, not just how people make it.
15 Jun 2004, Matt Asay on the real promise of open source: "What we thought was a software development methodology has perhaps even more importance as a business strategy that leverages its minimal sales, marketing, and distribution costs."
1 Jun 2005, Ray Lane on proprietary software profits: "The top 15 software companies are 84% of the revenues in the industry. The top three generate 75% of the profit, and the top one generates 57% of the profit. [Underneath that] it's becoming a wasteland."
11 Nov 2005, Larry Augustin writes, "The problem is that the traditional enterprise software business model is broken."
2 March 2007, Matt Asay on the how Alfresco closed one deal: "In the space of a few hours, I watched us beat out a field of 10+ ECM competitors (all the big names) to be selected by a Fortune 500 company as the centerpiece for its going-forward ECM strategy. What won it for us? Great technology and unparalleled access to our product."
16 August 2007, Matt Asay explains the new software sales cycle (Slashdot thread)
16 October 2007, Gary Little on what enterprise software can learn from community sites: "We found that that traditional model of enterprise software was becoming a challenge to invest behind because of that up-front cost in sales and marketing."
Project VRM defines "VRM" as "the reciprocal of CRM or Customer Relationship Management. It provides customers with tools for engaging with vendors in ways that work for both parties." Because the new software sales cycle depends on putting more of the software selection and evaluation work onto the customer, it depends on available information outside the vendor organization, either at the customer or out in the open.
The new software sales cycle, which is about selling to users, isn't just about hippy-dippy sharing woo-woo. It's like the transition from the store with everything behind the counter to the supermarket where the customer pushes the cart. Save money by putting more and more of the merchandise handling on the person who will be responsible for using it.
Selling to users leaves two essential roles for the IT Media business: first, the pure signaling value of expensive-to-produce content that a vendor can put an ad on, to say, "If the product turns out to be bad, I wasted this ad money." Second, the new breed of software company is not set up to deal with non-user leads, and the readers need to become users before they can become buyers. That means way more technical detail. You want someone to put the magazine down and say, "I'm going to put in a dedicated spamd box running Debian," not "Gosh darn it, we need to do something about all this Internet spam."