a la 360 by Gadi Shamia

Quick quiz to start things off: Who is the market leader in the enterprise software space? If you guessed Oracle, IBM and SAP, you got 5 points and a bonus. Question 2: who rules the consumer space? 5 points if you guessed Google and an extra 1 if you added Microsoft. Question number 3: who is the market leader in SMB? If “let me think” is your answer, you are in good company (and you got 2 points for having a brain…). So how come such a large market doesn’t have a market leader? Read more »

There is no doubt that SaaS and on demand are here to stay: if five years ago on demand solutions looked like an Internet version of the mainframe days (strong central server, no logic in the terminal, bad user interface… sound familiar?), the SaaS applications of today look appealing and offer a good alternative to the on premise world.

Continuing with the “seven things about Saas” Theme, which started with Seven reasons why SaaS is not main street in SMB and continued with Seven reasons why SaaS will be a great success, I would like to turn to the vendors now and offer some do’s and don’ts for the industry… Read more »

I am working on a new post that will put an end to the slow turkey week but in the interim, I figured out I can recognize my top posts based on how much you liked and read them. It is two months that I am writing now, so it is good time to name the winners…

The most popular by far is Leading a Global Team- The Starter Guide. I got few mails from people that said it really helped them which made me feel great…

Second in popularity is Apple Company Ethics. I am not sure why, but this one still attracts readers and a lot of people are getting to it by Googling Apple + ethics. Why is it that so many people are worried about Apple’s ethics? Read more »

“There is a new SaaS, Something as a Service every month.” This is how I mused a month ago when writing The next SaaS post. Newsweek has the story about the new Amazon reader, Kindle. The device (that looks anything but kindling) will be sold for $399, and will act like an iPod for your books. Kindle will offer more than iPod in one sense: it carries its “iTunes” with it, allowing owners to purchase and download books whenever a wireless network is in sight.

This is new and innovative in the books world but not really new when we think of what Apple did with iTune and iPod. The big difference is that Amazon created a new entry barrier for the avid book reader—buying the Kindle. Different? Yes. For the last 150 years or so, listening to music meant buying a device to play the music. From CD players, Walkmans or MP3 players: we first bought the device, and then bought the content. The music played on our device. Read more »

I was in New York this week and came to think of three very different product innovation problems, stemming from three different root causes. It will be great to get your examples for product innovation issues so I can learn as well…

The first one has to do with one of the simplest products to operate by the user: an elevator. What I am about to describe now happened to every single one of you. Guaranteed. You go in the elevator and press on your floor button. Say 47. The full elevator is getting empty around floor 12, but floors 13, 14 and 41 buttons are lit. You really want to get to your room (you know, nature calls after a long day out) but the mindless lift will stop four times before you get there. Why four if only 3 extra buttons were pressed? Aha… This is the man in the 37th that pressed both up and down buttons when he actually wanted to go down and now is showing you a blank face. How come there is no “Cancel” button that allows you to cancel the unneeded stops or the up button that was mistakenly pressed??? Read more »

The long tail has been here forever. Seth Godin ended his blog post about the topic with the following: “The question isn’t, “Is this real?” The question is: “What are you doing about it?” Since I aim to please, I sat right away trying to help the readers answering this question: What should I do about the long tail? Read more »

I actually didn’t plan to write about Facebook any more. In my recent post I claimed that Facebook is not solving any real problem. My readers were kind enough to prove me wrong… Jason thought we were just too old, and Jose thought that the problem Facebook is solving is loneliness. This is a big one to solve and a very good point… I scratched my head trying to reconcile the disconnect: Facebook is obviously successful and some people think they cannot live without it (one of the commenters, Radha, tested his strength by not logging into the ‘book for few days—this is how addicting it is). So how come so many people love it and so many others cannot understand the buzz? Read more »

In a typical Silicon Valley speed, Facebook coverage moved from being all glamorous to more realistic coverage that focuses on the challenges ahead. It looks as if the company has matured in a matter of weeks and now needs to deal with the real world problems and not only with the hype.Seth Godin compared Facebook with good old Hotmail. He foresees similar monetization challenges for Facebook, since they never developed a permission asset and a real relationship with their customers. (It is amazing to see that the question of how to monetize a free service is still open, more than 10 years after Hotmail was launched.)

Alas, I am not going to discuss monetization today. I think Facebook has another big challenge for long-term sustainability (and they have $15B to sustain…): it does not solve any real problem for its customer base. Read more »

Here is a radical thought: take the one most important parameter you measure in your business and publish it. I don’t mean publish as in a press release. I mean make it available in real time, 24/7 to your customers, employees and competitors. Read more »

While everyone in the tech industry was busy with who was briefed about Google OpenSocial, Shai Agassi launched his ambitious automotive business model. To me, both stories belong in “Advanced Business Strategies” class and show how much the high-tech industry has advanced over the last 15 years and turned to be a driving force and a thought leader for the entire global economy. Read more »