Comments on: The Consumerization of IT

By: We Are All Consumers Now « Hugh Morgan

We Are All Consumers Now « Hugh Morgan — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:34:07 +0000

[...] this idea six years ago but has gotten considerable purchase more recently, being described in GigoOm and ZDnet more [...]

By: Ali

Ali — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:19:32 +0000

Beth,

We have created a simple way to access enterprise applications on mobile devices. We have customers who express the same. Check us out at http://www.bitzermobile.com. Let us know if we can help.

By: Internet Evolution - Ron Miller - IT Needs to Get 'Consumerized'

Internet Evolution - Ron Miller - IT Needs to Get 'Consumerized' — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:37:25 +0000

[...] Urlocker subscribes to that view: "In the last 10 years, the Web has brought us countless innovative technologies which enable [...]

By: Beth

Beth — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:10:52 +0000

Great post, and totally right on. Of all the apps to move to the cloud, CRM seems like a no-brainer in a lot of ways. Suzanne Dove, our VP of Sales Effectiveness at Qwest, blogged about Qwest’s migration to Salesforce.com:

http://www.qwest.com/business/blog/Think%20Gig%20blog/chronicles-of-cloud-computing-moving-crm-to-the-cloud.html?refCode=ENT000000504

She shares some of the benefits, such as shorter implementation cycles and starting small. I would love to hear specific examples from other readers as well.

Cheers!

Beth,
Qwest Business

By: Chris Hobson

Chris Hobson — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:23:31 +0000

This may be unpopular given the recent trends that this (very good) article highlights and the 12-0 favorable/unfavorable ratio of the comments, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate.

I think there are situations where it makes sense to go to market with a good old-fashioned solution-selling sales team, large deal sizes and at least somewhat customized solutions. For example:

- if you sell a product that isn’t applicable to SMEs and thus has a smaller target group
- if you are creating a new category where the feature-set isn’t known yet
- if you are selling a solution that requires a great deal of customization for a particular company

Now, I’m not advocating a return to the crazy days of enterprise software in the ’90s, with year-long sales cycles followed by year-long (or longer) implementations with questionable ROI.

But I do think that in some cases it makes sense for companies to blend the best technical aspects of SaaS (faster deployments, less complication for internal IT departments) with the best revenue aspects of Enterprise (larger deal sizes, cash rich, higher touch).

By: Frank Woodman Jr

Frank Woodman Jr — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:13:38 +0000

Great article and you’re correct that the whole IT industry is moving toward more simplicity. Companies like Salesforce have grown because they have offered both all the important services a company needs in a simple to use format and a system stable enough to be counted on to be there. It’s these things that IT is finding are more important than those complicated Swiss Army Knife answers they have turned to in the past. I think like you we’ll only see more movement to simplicity, stability, and cost effectiveness in the future.

By: sunil satpathy

sunil satpathy — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:37:52 +0000

Great post. Completely agree with your view about ease of use, and the challenges facing Enterprise software.

By: Links for October 31 2010 | Eric D. Brown

Links for October 31 2010 | Eric D. Brown — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 13:31:57 +0000

[...] The Consumerization of IT By Zack Urlocker on GigaOm [...]

By: Todd Eccles

Todd Eccles — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:41:59 +0000

Great post and yes managing the sales process to find your sweet spot on how many staff you need for how many sign ups is right where we are at. Interesting to learn one of our vendors New Relic has 1 salesperson. I think our public are the small business owners and not the enterprise customer and due to that fact they really have not had to go through a buying process as it was just picking up QuickBooks down at costco. Now there are a ton of options for them on sites like http://www.getapp.com.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:37:26 +0000

It is obvious that enterprise software is seeing a change on how it is developed, ran, bought and used. There are millions of small businesses or LOB users that are adopting business applications for the first time, CRM, collaboration, email marketing and accounting leading the pack from what we see at GetApp.com with thousands of buyers finding and evaluating web-based business apps. These new users are buying like consumers, they are behave as”prosumers”. They want a way to find and evaluate the product that suits their need and an easy way to buy, run and use it. Most of this is happening online and this is why we are seeing new app stores popping up where these pros will buy the way they do as users. The Mac App Store will be one for Apple apps but there are other successful vendor agnostic initiatives such as my company http://www.getapp.com/. One big challenge that has to be addressed is the integration of these SaaS applications with legacy apps and other web-based products. Moving forward there will be many tools and services to buy or build connectors. These are likely to be available on app stores together with applications.