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A comment on Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting?.

Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by mattculbreth on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @12:31AM (#6826)
PG: I laughed along with most everyone else at Startup School after your line about (paraphrasing) "if you're not smart then develop enterprise software, since it's a sales business, not a technology business."

Good one, and definitely some truth. I've spent a bit of time in this field and there's certainly the boring factor with some of it.

However--I'm assuming you'd find it interesting if people took a traditional piece of "enterprise software" (big suites sold to big companies, I guess) and Web 2.0-ified it.

Any comment there?

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Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by pg on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @12:49PM (#6938)
I think there is probably a lot of opportunity for smart little startups to compete with enterprise software in the way microcomputers competed with mainframes. Just make something good that everyone can use, and eventually businesses will realize they can use it too.
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Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by run4yourlives on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @05:00PM (#7043)
That's right out of a "disruptive innovation" paper I read recently.

Nice to know the company I'm in with regards to my reading material!

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Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by dpapathanasiou on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @08:11AM (#6890)
Both Zimbra and SalesForce.com are doing it, i.e. taking an "enterprise" product and making it web-available to anyone.

And while both still sell to large companies, they also reach individuals and smaller firms, too.

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Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by mattculbreth on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @11:18AM (#6917)
There you go. I think maybe that's the key--take an existing segment which is back in the early 90s in its usability, put it on the web with the latest UI, usability, etc., and you then go right up against the existing suites. I've actually seen NetSuite do this for ERP, and their UI isn't even any good.
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Re:Ask Paul: Is "smart" enterprise software interesting? by lkozma on Thursday March 29, 2007 @09:40AM (#7258)
The sad thing is that web2.0 is a sales business too, rather than a technology business.
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