Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing - Stop paying for shelfware

First of all, some of you may be wondering what shelf-ware is so a quick definition. It’s software you buy and don’t use. So if you bought 1000 licenses of Vendor X’s latest ERP software and use 905 licenses, you now have 95 licenses not being utilized. That’s 95 licenses of shelfware you pay maintenance on whether or not you use the software or not.

To avoid paying for shelfware you have to do a few things:

1. Conduct an internal software audit. Figure out how much software you have and are using.
2. Look at your contract to see if you can reduce shelfware. Vendors are smarter than clients in most cases. You might just find a clause that says any return of software subjects you to repricing of the contract. There are a number of similar clauses like this.
3. Determine future demand. Find out if you will use the software in the next 3 months. If you have a demand, then it doesn’t make sense to return.
4. Consider price protection. Arranging for future discounted prices helps with reducing shelfware and paying maintenance on software not deployed. These clauses are a good way forward

Your POV

I’m in the process of updating the Enterprise Software Licensee Bill of Rights. If you’ve got an idea or suggestion to share, please comment or send a private email to rwang0@gmail.com. If I use it, I’ll send you the updated version. Look forward to hearing your thoughts!

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Monday’s Musings: Will Tech Vendors Without Credit Lines Survive The Financial Crisis?

Let’s hope the government finds the most equitable and expeditious solution to the current financial crisis. Without access to credit lines, enterprises lack the financial means to respond to the current economic downturn by transitioning their legacy systems and transforming their business processes. Tech vendors who lack vendor led financing options will be the most vulnerable to this credit crunch. These vendors may find themselves unable to close deals with clients shut out from the credit markets.

Vendor led financing initiatives may prove to be the lubricant that keeps tech spending moving forward. Tech vendors such as Sun, Intel, HP, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are best positioned to whether the financial crisis because they have their own financing arms - an important resource which will provide them with such capabilities to extend not only to their customers, but also to their key partners.

Your POV.

Look forward to hearing your views. Where do you think the current crisis will take us?

Related posts: See Infor’s Move with IBM

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

BLOG UPDATE: Change your links to blog.softwareinsider.org

Hello! Starting in January 2009, A Software Insiders Point of View will be moving to a new home. As we are in beta, look forward to new ways of sharing and reaching out. Look forward to your suggestions!

Here's the new blog link:

http://blog.softwareinsider.org

Cheers!

News Analysis: Oracle SaaS Platform Offering Adds Choice to Emerging PaaS Platform Wars

Emerging SaaS platform wars akin to on-premise middleware wars
With consolidation in the middleware market fairly under way, adoption of SaaS platforms (i.e. PaaS) by solution partners represents the next land grab in the enterprise software space. Current key players include industry leaders and specialists such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Magic Software (UniPaas). Today's announcement by Oracle indicates that:

• R&D investment in the on-premise stack is very applicable to the cloud. As Oracle continues to strengthen it's "Red Stack" initiatives, it's looking at how to effectively win in multiple deployment options from hosted, single tenancy, multi-instance, and multi-tenancy. The platform offering currently includes Oracle database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and Oracle VM along with security and other high availability support. The existing partnership with Amazon WebServices show cases this commitment to work with other cloud providers.
  
• Oracle seeks to become the PaaS vendor of choice. Oracle's foray into SaaS platforms and cloud computing gains momentum as 250 ISV's have chosen the Oracle SaaS platform for delivery and development. ISV's include Adaptive Planning, Ariba, Asknet Inc., Blackboard, Callidus Software, CashEdge, Click Commerce, Inc., Docupace Technologies, dthree inc., EnterConnect, eXpresso Corp., frevvo, InfoNow, Intacct Corp., MAXIMUS, Inc., OpSource, Perot Systems, Sabrix, SuccessFactors, Teranode Corp., Where 2 Get It, Wireless Matrix, Workstream Inc., Xactly Corp, Zogix. The list of ISV's is impressive given the size of the vendors, industries, and geographies.

The bottom line...
SaaS platform wars will intensify as Oracle enters a parallell market where BEA, Microsoft VS.NET, and WebSphere traditionally played in the on-premise world. This move can be seen as Oracle's ambition to be the software deployment and development platform of choice for the cloud based computing world. In effect, Oracle now places itself in direct competition with SalesForce.com, NetSuite, and Google for mindshare and technology partnerships. ISV's looking for a PaaS partner now gain another option.

Your turn.
What are your thoughts on Oracle in the Cloud Computing space? Do you see Oracle as an effective provider of solutions for your ISV? Do you believe you can partner with Oracle? Does Oracle provide you with the right tools? Look forward to hearing from you! Feel free to post your comments here or send me a private email at rwang0@gmail.com.

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Trip Report: 2008 Oracle Open World Day 1

View from the Moscone North to South Above Ground Crosswalk Looking into Moscone West
(Copyrighted 2008. Photo by R Wang. All rights reserved)

In the world of enterprise software, Oracle's Open World is one of the grand slam must attend events of the year. Day 1 starts with the Oracle Users Forum, a collection of 420 affiliated user group communities participating in special interest group sessions, and the Oracle Partner Network Forum at the Hilton including the Titan Partner awards. Conversations with partners and customers at these user group sessions reveal an emerging and evolving perception of Oracle and its long term strategy that include conversation themes such as:

• What's in the Fusion Apps and when are they coming out? I was stopped a number of times by clients who wanted to know if we had seen the Fusion apps. Sworn to secrecy, I can say I've seen it. We saw real live code at the Oracle Apps Analyst day a few weeks back. The user experience is first rate and I can't comment anymore unless I plan to give up my first born. However, if they deliver, this may be game changing.
  
• Should I go with the "Red Stack"? The stack wars represent a consolidated vendor reality. For years, we've used the term "Red Stack" (i.e. Oracle), "Blue Stack" (i.e. IBM), "Rainbow Stack" (i.e. Microsoft), and "Open Stack" (i.e. LAMP) to describe how consolidation is impacting database, middleware, and applications. Increasingly, partner and customers see themselves choosing among stacks. Notably, we see a lot of discussion from the services based businesses about how they are facing a decision that may require a bet on either the "Red Stack" or the"Blue Stack". Others are looking at coexistence with the "Rainbow Stack" in the Oracle enviornments. I spoke with one Federal agency customer who talked about how legacy system replacement was big and how the were looking to see what Oracle could offer in iGovernment. In general, these discussion occur in the large context of an apps strategy and a solutions strategy. Our standard advice, just don't get locked in to a vendor and find yourself with no leverage to switch.
  
• Custom versus packaged apps, does this even matter? With a lot of the tools in Fusion Middleware and other application stacks improving, many customers expressed a viewpoint that packaged apps were just a starting point. One customer from a large multinational hardware provider pointed out how they are extending a lot of their packaged apps using Fusion Middleware to meet new business models. Another customer in the retail sector talked about how deal management and demand planning was back in vogue as the focus shifted to operations from financial engineering. This customer was looking for the capabilities to configure using JDeveloper over some of their other customization efforts.
• Can I trust Oracle as a partner? Oracle is prioritizing efforts to partner with apps and solution providers. For years, Oracle apps partners have often talked about how it was hard to talk about whitespaces in roadmaps, gain commitment from senior executives, and seek joint go-to-market strategies. Conversations from the Partner floor seem to signal a shift in attitude and some optimism in colalborative relationships. More importantly, there was much chatter about new marketing development funds and a renewed focus on partner enablement.
  
• What's Oracle doing about "Green"? There's a surprising amount of interest in Oracle's Green Room Sessions. Being in San Francisco, it's not surprising to find a lot of interest in the Green Marketplace. A few people kept asking me if I knew what was going on with environmental stewardship, sustainability, and green activities. Not being the green analyst I'm making a point to drop by to the Novellus Theatre on Thursday to check out a few of these sessions.
  
• Have you tried Oracle Mix? Hands down this beats the old clunky Oracle Connect! A lot of "early adopter type" attendees have taken advantage of Oracle's new social networking framework at Open World. It's an enterprise version of facebook meets ning! Check it out..(https://mix.oracle.com) or check me out at https://mix.oracle.com/user_profiles/21960-r-ray-wang . drop me a message or add me to your network. Better yet, send me a linked-in request.
  
  
  
  
  
• Are you checking out tonight's keynote? You bet! In the midst of this year's best reality show (i.e. the US Presidential Election), how can you turn down the all time best political power couple and strategists - James Carville (D) and Mary Matalin (R)? See you there!
  

Next stop: Forrester's Business and Technology Leadership Forum (JW Marriott, Orlando)
I'm off to Orlando and then back to San Francisco again for the rest of OOW. But come hear the future as we keynote what life will be like in 2020 across the Business Process and Apps Professional, Information and Knowledge Management Professional, and CIO roles in the Business Applications 2020: A Three Role Perspective event!


(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Trip Report: Fall Event Tour Summary

For those of you on the road this fall, may be we can find a place to meet up!

September
09/08 to 09/12 SAP's Tech Ed, The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV - Not Attending
09/10 to 09/11 Intuit's Enterprise Solutions Users Conference, Hyatt Regency, Dallas, TX - Not Attending
09/21 to 09/26 Oracle Open World, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA - Attending
09/23 to 09/24 Forrester's Business Technology Leadership Forum, JW Marriott, Orlando, FL- Attending
09/29 to 10/01 Initiate's Exchange, Westin Kierland Resort, Scottsdale, AZ - Attending

October
10/01 to 10/03 iGate User Event, Ritz Carlton, Orlando, FL - Not Attending
10/05 to 10/08 IFS Customer Summit, Westin Chicago Northwest, Chicago, IL -Not Attending
10/12 to 10/16 Terradata Partners User Group Conference and Expo, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV - Not Attending
10/14 to 10/14 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Launch, New York, NY - Attending
10/14 to 10/17 Consona Connect User Conference, MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV - Attending
10/14 to 10/16 Infor's Inforum 2008, The Venetian and Sands Expo, Las Vegas, NV - Attending
10/19 to 10/22 Epicor's Perspectives 2008, Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, NV - Not Attending
10/26 to 10/31 IBM's Information On Demand, The Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV - Attending

November
11/02 to 11/05 SalesForce.com's DreamForce'08, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA - Attending
11/10 to 11/11 UK and Ireland SAP User Group, London West Novotel, United Kingdom, - Attending
11/16 to 11/18 HCL Global Meet, The Disney Yacht and Beach Club Resort, Orlando, FL - TBD
11/17 to 11/20 Sage Summit, Mile High Convention Center, Denver, CO - TBD
11/18 to 11/20 Open Text Content World, JW Marriott, Orlando FL - TBD




(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Food for Thought: Is There a Correlation with Good To Great Companies and the Primary ERP System of Record?

From time to time, this question comes up as to what ERP systems are used in the 12 companies listed in Jim Collins, "Good to Great" book. Here's the "official" system of record as gleaned from public sources including press releases, SEC filings, and media quotes. If you work for any of these companies, please let me know if I've got any of these wrong as things may have changed...

* Abbott Laboratories - SAP - Primary. BPCS (Infor) and JD Edwards (Oracle) run at the plant level
* Circuit City - PeopleSoft (Oracle) - Primary. Retek (Oracle) at the retail level.
* Fannie Mae - Custom ERP systems
* Gillette – Oracle (At the time of the book), P&G acquired Gillette and runs SAP
* Kimberly-Clark - SAP - Primary
* Kroger - Custom ERP systems. Retek (Oracle) at the retail level.
* Nucor - Custom ERP systems. IFS and Microsoft Great Plains at some plants
* Philip Morris - SAP - Primary
* Pitney Bowes - Oracle - Primary
* Walgreens - Custom ERP systems
* Wells Fargo - PeopleSoft (Oracle) - Primary

The bottom line.
The final score here is 4 for Custom ERP systems, 4 for SAP, 2 for Oracle, and 2 for PeopleSoft. With such a small sample size and Oracle buying up PeopleSoft, it looks like a 3-way tie for SAP, Oracle, and a custom ERP system. If there's any lesson learned here, technology serves a role as an accelerator and not a change agent. One might want to place bigger bets on people, especially Level 5 leaders, strong management, and self-discipline.

Your turn.
As far as one can tell, there rarely is a correlation with the ERP system and how well a company does, but I'll let you be the judge. Do you think the ERP System of record makes a difference in how a company runs? Share your thoughts here or send me a private email at rwang0@gmail.com.

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Trends: What Customers Want From Maintenance And Support

One of the hottest topics this year has been maintenance and support. With many vendors contemplating another price hike, customers increasingly ask where's all that money going. The dirty secret - many vendors typically take up to 85% of the fees as profit, leaving a paltry 15% for reinvestment in support, maintenance, and upgrades. What's worse, some vendors have not only under invested in the core technology, but they have also failed to deliver basic enhancement requests that a majority of customers have asked for. Below's a top 10 wish list that customers are asking for from their vendors (in classic Letterman style):

10. Web based self service driven user support communities
9. Knowledgeable and culturally appropriate support professionals
8. Fixed pricing with no CPI or other inflationary price increases
7. Transparency into functionality and enhancement and prioritization
6. Time and materials billing for products outside of vendor stated support policies
5. 24/7 follow the sun support
4. Service level agreements for response times and quality of resolution
3. Transparency in how much of the maintenance and support dollar is reinvested versus how much is going to profit
2. Choice in support options and packages (i.e. tiered maintenance options)
1. Option for third party maintenance

Bottom line
Some major ERP vendors, especially those in the more competitive midmarket, have seen the light and are beginning to take steps towards delivering on the above wish list. It goes to prove that competition keeps everyone honest. However, those customers who are "locked in" to a vendor, need to organize and band together to create the right leverage with vendors who are hell bent on milking their customers for all their worth in the maintenance dollars. Start the movement with your user groups or other industry trade groups. If you fail to organize, well, you'll know it when you find yourself locked in.

Your turn.
Are you finding that your long term costs to keep the lights on continue to grow? Would you rather spend 80% of your budget on innovation and new projects instead of commoditized back office processes? Would you like to organize with other customers to affect change. Look forward to hearing from you! Feel free to post your comments here or send me a private email at rwang0@gmail.com.

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved