Useful Primer on How to Sell Software
November 16, 2008
I am not too keen on business books. I know. I know. Martin White and I have just written a business and management book called “Successful Enterprise Search Management (Galatea, 2008). Just because I write books doesn’t mean I have to like my own work. That’s why I have a superstar coauthor like Mr. White. The kind people who read early drafts of the book and made quite helpful suggestions suggest that Mr. White and I have done pretty good word. One person indicated that our 200 plus page study was a “benchmark volume”. I hope the person was not writing this from a dentist’s chair after a dose of laughing gas.
The point is that I don’t read much of the baloney that passes for management advice. I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton before the company became a body shop and evidenced schizophrenic behavior toward its different businesses. Moms love those flashy MBAs degrees from upscale universities. For me, I learned to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets when those kids explained how to “save” a business. Look up the history of John Deere to understand that to which I refer.
Please, navigate here and then here to see the two part article by Dennis Byron. His “The Software Channel: Lessons Learned from How the Biggest IT Spenders Acquire Enterprise Software.” You will find the write up quite interesting and useful. As the economic noose tightens around the neck of some search and content processing companies, Mr. Byron reminds us of the importance of understanding procedures. I don’t agree with a few of the points in Mr. Byron’s analysis, but that is small potatoes because he has delivered a very good main dish.
The key points in his write up for me were:
- His diagram of how the software channel works is quite useful
- He provides a summary of tips about how an established software channel can help a software developer
- He summarizes some of the new pricing and deal options that are becoming evident for the last part of 2008. Some of these will carry over into 2009.
I downloaded his article, and I think I may make some changes to his channel diagram. A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to this article in IT Business Edge.
Stephen Arnold, November 16, 2008
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