#Oracle’s Web2.0 in the Enterprise Announcement
some potentially big news from Oracle today, they have seen the light in Enterprise2.0 and they’re not selling it for cheap. This is great news for most of us in the industry and here’s why: Not only will Oracle be helping to validate and evangelize the space, but they are also setting the bar high in terms of pricing. In the valley, I saw far too many “Office20” companies giving away too-small sets of widgets aiming for too low a price. It’s time, as an industry we start aiming higher and look to the real value that these technologies have to offer. Because it’s real. Now, Enterprise2.0 pundit Jerry Bowles expresses some reservations about Oracle’s actual implementation in practice, but then, in terms of them still leaving ample room for competition, I’m fine with that too 😉
“Today’s announcement that uber-shark Oracle has come up with a “new†product called Oracle WebCenter Suite that “uses Web 2.0 technology to create a context-aware interactive environment that supports the intersection of people, processes, and information across multiple channels to enhance the productivity of information workers†is an outrage to the English language but a sure sign that the battle to integrate Web 2.0 technologies in enterprises has begun in earnest. “
#Union Square Ventures on small deal sizes
Other encouraging news for startups, and on the other side of the money scale, at least one leading VC‘s has woken up to the cost-realities of modern software development. They’re making deal sizes smaller. One of the great barriers to financing startups is that VC (esp conventional/generalist VC esp in Canada) are often not well set up to cater to the much lower (initial) capital requirements of startups. Traditional VC is often focused on placing deals in the 3-5M range as opposed to the 1M or less I often see software firms looking for to get to initial market. Union Square Ventures is a firm that is changing the traditional model placing more, smaller deals, and they believe in so doing better allocating their capital at better risk (more diversification and not giving early companies more than they need). From their blog post on the subject:
“The most important factor, however, is the capital efficiency we are seeing in our portfolio companies. They simply don’t need as much money as the companies we backed 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or 15 years ago. They may need as much capital when they become big businesses and need to invest to grow. But the clearly do not need as much capital to get from idea to commercial launch and to revenues.”