Changing Landscape of Software Business
Ray Lane of venture capital titan, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, has posted a compelling essay on his “7 Laws for the New Software Landscape”. It’s an excellent piece, and worth reading in its entirety.
But the key messages are delivered in laws 2, 5, and 7. And all of them have to do with the changing role of IT in the typical enterprise.
Virally adopted – Users will hear about it via word of mouth. Someone downloaded it and is saying, “Try this.”
First, software success in the new era will largely come from viral marketing and viral adoption. Of course, it has long been a universal truth that end-users will adopt and implement technology that suits them, bypassing IT if possible. But the technology and the new business models embrace this concept and exploit it as never before.
Delivers instantaneous value – As soon as users begin to use the application, they realize its value. There is no waiting period or return that is based on usage by a larger group.
Second, the software must deliver value to the end-users instantly. Forget the long process of gathering requirements, and developing software, and deploying it globally. And if they’re not careful, forget IT, too.
Minimal IT footprint – CIOs are critical in determining how technology is utilized by the company but no longer have to make all the decisions. Ideally, products should be able to be adopted without IT’s approval.
Here, the advice is explicit — go outside of IT, at least to start with. Now, it must be said that if the new software is to become an enterprise-wide success, that IT must be engaged, in order to connect to networks, security systems, directories, email systems and the like. However, I wonder if IT really understands the threat that is out there to its traditional role and existence?
Read the whole article.
[H/T: Innovation Creators]