
CIOs Spurn Web 2.0 Startups - Enterprises Want Suites and Large, Incumbent Software Vendors - danw
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cios_spurn_web2_startups.php
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pg
They spurned microcomputers at first too. Big cos will always be the last to
adopt new technology.

This doesn't mean things are hopeless for startups, though. It just means they
won't get the big cos as customers till they themselves grow larger. Or to put
it more optimistically, that they will grow larger by gradually consuming the
market share of the "incumbents."

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danw
It took a long time for most bigcos to adopt mobile phones too.

From what I've heard trying to sign a bigco up for anything is a lot of work,
usualy far more than a small startup can afford to spend on a single customer.
The company will spend so long evaluating your software that you'll have run
out of cash before hearing a yes/no from them. Better to chase
individuals/small biz at the start because they're easier to sell to. Of
course there will always be exceptions (loopt and boost springs to mind
despite not being an enterprise app).

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myoung8
one of the important questions is: are bigcos resistant to the software itself
or the notion of buying software from a small startup?

from what i've heard about all things at the enterprise level, corporate
accounts are notorioulsy sticky because of the process (it takes uncountable
pages of paperwork to get anything done).

so maybe CIOs are reluctant to switch because they already buy from IBM/MS and
it's just easier that way.

their loss...

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drop19
We should all be planning to fly under big companies anyway and not targeting
these kinds of large organizations at first.

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awt
If business wants slow response time and lack of innovation then they're
welcome to it.

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chwolfe
1) Make YOUR users happy 2) Get bought out by big company ABC 3) Let ABC worry
about selling it to the suits (They'll be better at it anyway).

