Because Consultants will Rant – # 1

The Simple Analyst (who happens to be a good friend of mine) and I had an interesting series of email conversations on the future of enterprise software. What is funny, strange and perhaps even ironic is the fact that none of us are part of the genus that has come to be known as ‘the Software types’. One’s a business grad (and hence knows very little) and I’m a victim of engineering (and hence know nothing at all). But we’re technocrats and are suppossedly Strategy Consultants . And consultants have the license to speak and opine on any topic. Don’t ask me why, thats just how it is.

So, the analyst conjures up this document from Booz that talks of the changing landscape in enterprise software.

What, according to me, it comes down to is this:

BEGIN:Rant

With the rising outlook of solutions architected on SOA (google it! I’m going to be the acronym obssessed, ever annoying consultant) and such frameworks as well as the mainstream arrival of Open Source Software, CIO’s will increasingly gravitate to using these open source ‘modules’ in their applications. This will crash development time as well as reduce costs.

The days of monolithic software are numbered. Primarily because the economics don’t pan out.

So, all in all, the software landscape will orient itself to two major phenomena:

1)‘On Demand’ solutions for SMB’s, with annual ‘per seat’ subscription fees (a la salesforce.com, netsuite etc.).

2) Open Source ‘Modules’ implemented in an SOA environment for large enterprises.

The analyst adds that legacy systems will still be used extensively. Perhaps, but I guess they will be ‘adaptorized’ and integrated into the larger SOA framework.

END:rant

Crap. what a boring blog post. I’m seriously begining to lose it. aargh. The curse of the software types is upon me. oxCAFEBABE

LBOs are only going to get bigger — here’s why

Scary proposition – 2005 saw an unheralded USD200 Billion spent on an estimated 845 LBO deals. Crazy, not just because of the scale of money thats being spent in taking public companies private, but because of the scorching growth in spend – We're talking of numbers that have more than doubled over the last 2 years (which is a trend that, curiously and sadly, my salary has chosen not to follow).

All of this, ofcourse, is symptomatic of a global resurgence in the worlds' economies (note to salary: where's your resurgence, you little dipshit?). With investor confidence this high and the growth of Private Equity firms kitties, it looks like this is a wave that we are going to ride for some more time.

Ps:Investor confidence is a wonderful thing. But this confidence is also fickle. And investors hate fickle things. And fickle things cut investor confidence. Therefore, the investor is his own enemy. er… whatever!