Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Duncan Jones of Forrester on Pay-per-use Software Pricing

Duncan Jones of Forrester Research focuses on software pricing and licensing and helps clients understand and address the effect of technology changes on software contracts.

Pay per use provides flexible, on-demand services, suitable for temporary needs, but is not suitable for regularly used applications. Jone's concerns include:

  1. Complexity to define and track. How to measure time-based or transactional usage reliably?
  2. Unpredictable and uncontrallable. How to prevent an unexpected, unbudgeted bills at the end of the month?
  3. Expensive. Some people assume that it'll be cheaper if they only pay for what they actually use. That's an incorrect assumption. The per hour rate will always be sufficiently more than the per year rate to push customers to the latter. Price is driven by negotiation leverage and competition, not the licensing model.
  4. Counter-productive. Software vendors want people to use the tools you've made available, so why create a cost disincentive by making customers wonder, before starting an application, "How much will this cost?"

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Jim Collins Good to Great

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies — how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored four books, including the classic BUILT TO LAST.

Executives spend too much time wordsmithing vision statements, mission statements, values statements, purpose statements, and aspiration statements—and nowhere near enough time trying to align their organizations with the values and visions already in place.