The Future of Enterprise Software

On the Road to Copenhagen With Hara’s Amit Chatterjee

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:41:55 -0500

We caught up with Amit Chatterjee, co-founder and CEO of Hara, as he was winding up the better part of two weeks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Here are some of my notes from our call:...

The Predictions about Chinese Consumers Are Coming True

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:51:13 -0500

While looking for some files recently, I came across an old PowerPoint presentation that I had given five years ago that talked about what China would be like in 2010. One bullet said that the country had already emerged as...

Salesforce Chatter and Faceforce

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:08:34 -0500

While searching for a piece that I had written about the concept of visual apps, "The Future of Software? Think Visual Apps," I found that I had written about a potential precursor to Salesforce Chatter back in October 2007. In...

Rethinking Twitter

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:37:29 -0500

To date, I have ignored all of the inbound e-mails from friends/readers/strangers offering to follow me on Twitter. My only reason is that I can’t possibly manage any additional e-mails. Every day I’m greeted with the dreaded “Your mailbox is...

Will Salesforce Chatter Neuter Microsoft Office and SharePoint?

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:31:45 -0500

On the Friday before Dreamforce, I read an interesting article in MIT Technology Review, entitled “Fixing E-Mail” that offered insights from the recently completed Defrag 2009 conference. As I read it, I was struck by two comments attributed to Lili...

Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and 100,000 Missed Sales Opportunities

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:25:27 -0500

On a third-quarter earnings call last Tuesday, salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff announced that his company had reached 67,900 net paying cloud customers. Presumably, this doesn’t include the 7,500 nonprofits and non-government organizations that are using it for free....

Clarification on My Coverage of Dow’s Sustainability Achievements

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:26:31 -0500

Early this morning I received an e-mail from Henry Ward, Global Supply Chain Director, Security, Sustainability & Public Policy at The Dow Chemical Company. Mr. Ward was one of the featured speakers at the Sustainability Exchange that we hosted last...

Ready To Trust Google as Your Keys and Wallet?

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:56:01 -0500

As I write this it is 66 degrees on a sunny afternoon. One can really get used to a very rare Indian-Summer-in-November streak. That said, it will be dark in just a few hours, and the cold weather won’t be...

Kudos to Manhattan Associates’ Clever Marketing Promo

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:45:25 -0500

This morning I walked out of Starbucks without realizing that the design on my cup was that of a Christmas tree. To think that I still have my golf clubs in my trunk... When I got to my office there...

United Breaks Guitars, Then Loses Luggage

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:58:26 -0400

In September, I wrote about the role that social networks play in shaping opinions and used the example of Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitars” video that was entertaining millions on You Tube while completely distressing United Airlines. As you may...

BigIdeas from BigMachines on the Front End of the Supply Chain

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:28:37 -0400

In the latest First Thing Monday I noted that one Model N executive had pulled me aside and chided me for “missing the front end of the supply chain.” Basically, his point was that while our annual supply chain executive...

Salesforce.com and Oracle: A Tale of Two Worlds

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:25:00 -0400

In the current edition of First Thing Monday I opened by asking, “What’s salesforce.com doing at Oracle OpenWorld? At the conference, I found the answer: salesforce.com is making the most of what might be a one-time opportunity. On the first...

A Wall Apps Pioneer Weighs In On the Topic

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:04:35 -0400

Robb Bush, an innovator at i2 Technologies in the '90s, and now with SAP, offered his perspectives on Wall Apps: Bruce, I read with great interest "The Future of Work: Wall Apps." I have also enjoyed the thoughtful commentary. However,...

Reader Comments on Wall Apps: The Proponents' Edition

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:38:36 -0400

One reader noted that after reading my piece, he happened to watch “Three Rivers,” a new TV drama that employed the Wall Apps concepts in an episode that aired that same night: “At the morning meeting, the doctor went to...

Reader Comments on Wall Apps: The Dissenters’ Edition

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:25:26 -0400

In my recent post on “The Future of Work: Wall Apps,” I advocated placing large screens in the executive suite and around the building to display real-time performance information. Not surprisingly, I received several emails from opponents and proponents. The...

Reader Comments on “The Future of Work: When Will Desktops Catch Up to Consumer Electronics”

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:08:06 -0400

The current edition of First Thing Monday continues the theme of “The Future of Work.” This time we asked, “when will desktops catch up to consumer electronics?" If you look at the advances in price/performance for processors, memory, storage, printers,...

Tom Gunn Comments on My “ERP Doomsday Scenario”

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:07:03 -0400

I first got acquainted with Tom Gunn by name only after the publication of his book, “Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage” in 1987. This was one of four books Tom wrote on manufacturing. At the time he was the national director...

Revisiting My 2006 “ERP Doomsday Scenario”

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Three years ago I published a piece entitled “ERP Doomsday Scenario: Death by SOA?” that questioned whether “rapid adoption of SOA will lead to the end of the ERP market as we know it.” While I may have overstated the...

Talking with Dave Carroll, Creator/Victim of “United Breaks Guitars”

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:14:18 -0400

The September 14th edition of First Thing Monday talks about the logical linkage between various social networking tools and your customer-facing operations. I used the example of the “United Breaks Guitars” video on YouTube as a how-to guide to ineffective...

Design Your Own Tragic Quadrant

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:02:08 -0400

In the current issue of First Thing Monday I offered my own version of a 2-by-2 matrix with time to value and relative complexity for the x and y axes. Instead of picking winners I wanted to point out factors...

Readers’ Comments on “Too Late for the Sky”

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:32:59 -0400

Last week’s piece on the challenges facing ERP vendors who may not have moved fast enough to support cloud/SaaS apps drew the most e-mail so far this year. Peter Fingar was the first to comment. Peter recently teamed with Andy...

My Checklist on the Economics of Cloud Apps

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:51:38 -0400

Over the last year or so I have participated in a several webcasts where my role has been to offer advice on how to select your next business system. If you read last week’s First Thing Monday, you will detect...

The Future of Work: A Vote for Google Wave

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:51:06 -0400

The flurry of posts drew this comment from Jeff, who asked to be identified only as a director of product management at a supply chain software company. Here are his comments: Bruce, Great articles the past few weeks. I believe...

Is There a Fit Between Innocentive and Prediction Markets?

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:32:49 -0400

One of my favorite daily reads is Xconomy, an online publication covering all facets of technology and innovation in Boston, San Diego, and Seattle. Last Monday, Xconomy wrote about Innocentive’s success in raising an additional $7M in funding to help...

Three Voices on Prediction Markets: The Analyst, the Believer, and the Skeptic

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:51:49 -0400

I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to my First Thing Monday piece on Crowdcast and prediction markets. Here are some of the initial comments I received. An analyst’s view: Bruce, Someone forwarded your article about Crowdcast and I see...

Crowdsourcing and Prediction Markets: Right-Timing Revisited

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:07:15 -0400

After talking with the Crowdcast team, I went and retrieved my right-timing file. Some of the features I was interested in would be nearly impossible to implement. Others are already baked in Crowdcast’s prediction market. Here’s a closer look. If...

Crowdsourcing and Prediction Markets: My 2:00 a.m. Epiphany

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:54:03 -0400

In this week’s First Thing Monday analysis of Crowdcast, I mentioned that I have been interested in prediction markets since first reading about them in MIT’s Technology Review in June 2002. In fact, 18 months ago I became convinced that...

Avago Leverages Model N for Better Margins and Successful IPO

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:47:55 -0400

With so few IPOs these days, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the window is slightly ajar for worthy companies. We were reminded of this in an e-mail we received from Kamal Ahluwalia, vice president of corporate marketing at...

The Future of Work: Microsoft Responds

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:49:04 -0400

My recent First Thing Monday article drew the following response from Microsoft: "Hi Bruce, Thanks for including references to Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in your most recent articles in the “First Thing Monday” newsletter. I did want to point...

The Future of Work: Hey, We Got “Smart Office”

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:36:15 -0400

This theme continues to generate a lot of e-mail. This week’s First Thing Monday piece on the need for a layer above Office and Outlook drew a near real-time response from my friend Kathy at Lawson Software. Here it is:...

The Future of Work: “Information Percolation”

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:51:55 -0400

Eric Rasanayagam is an IT executive at a well-known Fortune 500 company. Here he weighs in on what he sees as the need beyond what Microsoft and Google are providing for office tools: Bruce – Appreciated your article regarding enterprise...

The Future of Work: One CIO Checks In

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:21:24 -0400

Within hours after writing about the fact that “It’s Time for New Office Tools,” I got an e-mail from a CIO who was in violent agreement with my perspective. When I asked if I could publish his comments, he agreed...

Uncovering Counterfeit Drugs

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:24:19 -0400

Did you happen to read “Using Scientific Tools in an International War on Fake Drugs" in the science section of last week’s The New York Times? It turns out that scientists are using mass spectrometers and other tools to determine...

What’s Next for Amazon?

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:34:05 -0400

While I have yet to make my first purchase on Zappos.com, I remain fascinated by the company’s growth. And, like many of the site’s fans, I was disappointed to hear that Amazon was acquiring the company for $850M in stock...

Remembering Tom Glaza

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:02:05 -0400

Last night I received an e-mail from Joe Phelan telling me that Tom Glaza had passed away on Saturday morning after a lengthy battle with cancer. Sadly, just yesterday I had made a calendar entry on my BlackBerry to call...

Wal-Mart To Require Suppliers To Provide Eco-Ratings

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:41:06 -0400

Today’s newspapers are abuzz with Wal-Mart’s plans to have its 100,000 suppliers provide labeling on the carbon footprints of all products sold on its store shelves. The retail giant plans to work with a group of academics, suppliers, and environmental...

ClickAndGo Wayfinding Maps: “MapQuest for the Blind and Deaf”

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:02:18 -0400

A few months ago I got a call from Joe Cioffi. Joe is an old college classmate of mine who has spent the last 30 years teaching deaf and blind students. He was thinking of starting a software company and...

Servigistics’ Next Step: Enter the Broader Supply Chain Planning Market?

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:45:53 -0400

When I first got the phone call from Servigistics’ founder Mike Landry telling me that his company was being acquired by Marlin Equity Partners and would be merged with another Marlin property—Click Commerce SNS—here was my initial reaction: The combination...

New Momentum and the “Mafia of the Future”

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:57:00 -0400

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a year since I talked to New Momentum executives about their plans to help tech companies deal with the rapid rise in counterfeit products. If you read “New Momentum Carving a Slice...

One Vote for the Goliaths

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:58:16 -0400

As you might guess, most of the e-mails I’ve received on the innovation debate have been in favor of the best-of-breed vendors as the source of innovation. One reader, though, took exception and offered her own perspective: “Very interesting read....

What’s The Fully Loaded Cost of Software Delivery by Platform?

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:32:56 -0400

I wish I had a dollar for every time I found myself in a debate over whether SaaS is cheaper than on-premise software over a 5- or 10-year period. Well, here’s some ammo that’s not going to win me friends...

Highlights From Oracle’s Earnings Call

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:04:52 -0400

Last night after the market closed, Oracle reported its Q4 and FY09 results for the period ending May 31. And they did it in a tidy 40 minutes or so. Here are some of the highlights and some additional notes:...

More Comments on Oracle’s “100 Days of Innovation”

Bruce Richardson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:37:13 -0400

Yesterday we received an e-mail from Mitchell Ashley commenting on Oracle’s new marketing campaign on innovation. I think you will find his insights to be of interest. I’ve also included links to his blogs on social media, convergence, and guitars....

Technology Buyers Respond to the Innovation Debate

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:48:52 -0400

Does innovation come from the Goliaths (a.k.a large ERP vendors) or from the best-of-breed vendors? This was the topic of a recent blog post and my most recent First Thing Monday commentary. The latter generated quite a few private e-mails,...

Are SaaS Stocks Better Investments?

Bruce Richardson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:21:53 -0400

On Saturday morning, I received an email from a client asking if I had plans to revisit a blog post that I had written last December 15 that asked, “Is Now the Time to Buy the 'SaaS 20'?” Here’s an...

How Do We Know There’s a Puck?

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:14:06 -0400

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a meeting with the executive team from a relatively new startup. As might be expected, the team had a million ideas on how to establish a new product category. As they talked,...

Eco Software: Is There a Vendor-Buyer Chasm?

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:09:32 -0400

This week we met with two Oracle executives to catch up on the Conformia deal and related supply chain activities. At some point the conversation veered off to a discussion of some of the new software ventures formed to focus...

Oracle Buys Conformia IP for Undisclosed Price

Bruce Richardson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:32:00 -0400

Earlier this week Oracle quietly announced it had purchased the intellectual property assets of Conformia Software. Conformia provides product and process lifecycle management software for drug design and development for life sciences firms. The intent is to integrate the new...

Who Drives Software Innovation? The “Best-of-Breed vs. Giants” Debate

Bruce Richardson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:51:32 -0400

I got an e-mail from a client earlier this week who asked if I’ve ever written about whether more innovation comes from the Goliaths or the best-of-breed vendors. I’ve been studying the software industry for nearly 30 years, and have...

Heard in the Hall, Part 3: Oracle to TXT e-solutions

Bruce Richardson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:44:24 -0400

Here is the final installment of notes from our recent Supply Chain Executive Conference. We welcome your comments. We spent a couple of hours with Oracle’s John Burke at the conference. Here’s the condensed version: Oracle has invested millions to...