Software, in short
Did you know it costs between US$3922 (Infor) and US$5995 (SAP) per user (services included) to deploy an ERP? (source: Aberdeen 2006) I think 1) I find the people complaining about the price of MS Office 2007 (between US$149 & US$679) insane; 2) Deploying an ERP or any other solution is not so expensive after all when you consider good software adds value to the shareholders of client companies through improving business processes (or improve end-user comfort). Sadly enough, only the best Chief Information Officers understand software is more an investment (balance sheet) than an expense (P&L) line.
- Did you know it seems there is a difference between SaaS and ASP, and I don’t know what it is? SOS
- Did you know Microsoft launched Popfly? Popfly is an amazing tool devised in Silverlight, that allows for creating mash ups without writing a single line of code. I love Microsoft’s strategy of driving the ‘web philosophy’ within the organization through ’small, useful & beautiful’ apps like Popfly [More on blogs: Don Dodge; Robert Scoble; TechCrunch; Somasegar; for those who read French and feel like reading a nice brainstorming on potential mash ups, here's a nice post by e-tail entrepreneur Michel de Guilhermier; and here's a mash up matrix, if you lack ideas to start building in 2 clicks your own mash ups on Popfly] Congrats to Pierlag & Clauer, from MS France, who contributed to building Popfly last month in Redmond.
- Did you know I had breakfast this morning with one of my most reliable industry sources, in Paris for a couple days? Well, of course you didn’t know…According to many people around, Google is getting ready to enter the mobile OS market to compete with Symbian, Blackberry & Windows Mobile. Remember: Google had acquired Android back in August 2005. If the rumour turns out to be true, it means Google has chosen to go it alone in telco device software and not partner with Apple in the end. I would see it as good news for consumers as competition is always good. On top of this, I think Google has in its DNA what it takes to build simple, light software that fit hand device use characteristics.
- Did you know I’ve been wondering whether Microsoft’s fiercest competitor isn’t Cisco after all? I believe Cisco is a amazing company, ran by very smart people, that’s threatening Google as well by slowly entering the consumer market via a computer networks angle.
- Did you know I found blogger Cédric Giorgi’s case study about the way French & Toulouse-based eCommerce start up Vente du Diable organized its viral marketing & community building thrilling? Download the .pdf here. In English. Congrats Cedric, it’s a really nice case study and your down-to-earth strategy shows how well you understand the web.
- Did you know that one year ago I didn’t know what Ajax, Ruby (both heard about from Hubert) and C# (heard about from Damien, I knew the C# sign but had never pronounced it actually) were?
LikeRelated posts:
.NET (C#), Business Process Management, Business intelligence, Business strategy, CIO, Cisco, Clusters, Consulting, ERP, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Europe, Finance, Globalization, Google, Internet, MNC, Microsoft, Networks, SME, Silicon Valley, Software, Telecommunications, USA, blogging, innovation, marketing, retail, user-generated content
As for the cost of SAP, it can be much higher in multinational companies, which can deploy it among tens of thousands users. In such organizations, the cost can include more architecture engineering than licensing.
Leo, you tell me: any particular example?
Unfortunately it is not a public information, but my former company spent much money developing its global IT system (gathering especially manufacturing, commercial and HR data). Most of the cost was due to complex achitecture and data migration from different systems (each country used to have its own information system).
Hi Jeremy,
I have just realized that I had forgotten to thank you for your nice comment about my small case study !
So thank you ! I’m happy to hear that we share the same vision of the web.
You’re very welcome Cédric, you deserve it: your case study is so interesting that I’ve read it thrice.
[...] I was talking a few days ago about PopFly – a killer web app made by Microsoft to empower non developers with a tool to help them devise [...]