Optimism & growth sentiments were palpable throughout the software 2007 meet. McKinsey’s Ken Berryman made some insightful closing remarks – these were quite pointed and very interesting as well. Underlying the fact that innovation was the focal theme of the meet, Ken brought a number of related points relevant to the software industry:
• Amongst the various type of innovation, he argued that for the software industry,clearly disruptive change sparks waves of innovation.
• The good news is that in the software industry - the innovative wave of software is markedly on the rise and shows good promise of continuing that way.
• Innovation may not be the panacea for all players in all times – Innovation need not happen at all for a few players under some circumstances - in such cases, status quo and predetermined trajectory might suffice – old models may still prove to be successful.
• The power of the net and the flat world pushes everyone to think bottom-up, not top-down, and recommendation is to use communities to build software more aggressively (open source or otherwise)
• Many roads can lead to the success zone – There are indeed several models for building a software business – everyone of them has merits specific to needs.
• Key advise to software companies – Always seek new source of value. Unless done that way, opportunities to monetize using advertising would have never occurred even as a possibility.
• Its clearly heady times for established players - big & small. The software industry is growing fast, with 30%-50% margins
• Needless to repeat the interest and actual investments being made in software companies from venture and private equity is at an all-time high – consumer spending on software is also getting bigger. Its heady times ahead for the vendors. Would this help in creating significant changes to the industry – we will have to wait and see.
Labels: Emerging Trends, Innovation, Software 2007
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