The Software 2005 Conference - A Review

The Software 2005 conference is now a wrap. This conference, presented by M.R. Rangaswami and The Sandhill Group, is now an annual event and attendance increased 35% this year over 2004. It is an ideal opportunity for those in the enterprise software industry to see what's new and what's coming, as well as to catch up with old colleagues and make new connections. It is also a perfect forum for startups to gain exposure as well as solicit funding and key partnerships.

According to Sandhill, there were 1500 attendees this year, including 100 press and 100 VCs. Half of those in attendance were CEOs. We spotted a number of them, including entrepeneur/CEO (now a VC) Ken Ross, Indus CEO Greg Dukat, Composite SW and entrepeneur Jim Green, former webMethods CEO Phillip Merrick, and a host of others.

M.R. has a rolodex that anyone would die for, and he put it to good use in attracting the top executives from major enterprise software and services companies such as Oracle, Intuit, McKinsey and others for keynote addresses. There were also a number of breakout tracks on the latest trends in our industry, including SaaS, open source and offshoring.

There were a couple of unique forums made available for select startups. including the Launch and the Funding Forum, where startups were given a fixed amount of time to present their business plan to investors, who were invited back to the conference floor for further discussions if interested. Mark Cosway, a member of our board of advisors and President of ActStream Technologies, participated in Launch, and reported new contacts with a number of interested investors.

After taking in this conference, we think that it is safe to say that enterprise software as an industry is 'cautiously optimistic'. Venture investments are picking up, M&A activity is growing, and the overall buzz was a good one, after the last 4-5 years of doom and gloom. Many of the people that we talked to had taken long sabbaticals after the dot-com bust, and are just now getting back in the game.

All in all, the feeling was that it is a good time to be in the software and information technology business. We hope they're right - we certainly feel that way.

Ash Seha is a partner at The Launch Factory LLP, a consultancy specializing in marketing, sales, and product management strategy for software and IT companies. Their expertise, garnered from such IT highflyers as i2, webMethods, SAP, and Baan, is focused on breaking the growth bariers that stand between high-growth software and IT companies and their revenue and marketshare goals.

---

Microsoft Great Plains in Construction & Building ? Implementation & Customization Highlights

Microsoft Great Plains could be tuned and setup to fit... Read More

10 Things You Can Do With Photoshop CS2 That You Couldnt Do Before Now

Is Photoshop CS2 worth the upgrade? You bet it is!... Read More

3 Reasons Why Medical Billing Software is Leading the Way

Since technology changes so quickly, it is hard to begin... Read More

SyncUp ? A File/Folder Synchronizer For Windows

SyncUp, a file synchronizer is designed to assist the home... Read More

Blind CC (Bcc): Master Its Use When E-Mailing

If you use Microsoft Outlook (or similar applications) for e-mailing,... Read More

Unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.0 RC2

Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows98 SE,... Read More

Linux Secrets

The first thing that you will notice about Linux Red... Read More

Great Plains Customization ? Programming Auto-apply in Accounts Receivable

Microsoft Great Plains is one of three Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Food Processing ? Implementation & Customization Highlights

Microsoft Great Plains might be considered as ERP platform to... Read More

The Dirt on Screensavers

Remember back in the days where screensavers were the coolest... Read More

Fleet Maintenance Software Reviews

Innovative Maintenance Systems (IMS) is one company that offers solutions... Read More

Microsoft and Webmasters

Does Microsoft care for WebmastersIt's always been a problem with... Read More

Device Driver Basics

Most people understand that the "hardware" part of their computer... Read More

What is Spyware? Are You Being Watched?

Find out why Spyware Removal from computers is important and... Read More

How a Bug Challenges to a Software Professional

It is really interesting that a bug can create problem... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains: Dexterity vs. eConnect ? FAQ

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise... Read More

International Support - Microsoft Great Plains VAR/Partner Selection ? Overview for V.P. IT

Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular,... Read More

Groupware as a Document Manager: Collaboration Series #3

This article is the third of a series of articles... Read More

Microsoft Moves to Small Business Accounting/Retail Market ? Stakes and Thoughts

In this small article we will be looking at the... Read More

RSS: Get Notified When Your Favorite Websites Are Updated

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way for a site... Read More

Five Steps to Rapid Development with TierDeveloper 4.0

Follow the steps below to quickly design, generate, and deploy... Read More

About Microsoft Sysprep (System Preparation) Utility (Windows 2000)

The Microsoft system preparation utility for Windows 2000 is a... Read More

CROOK: A Methodology for the Refinement of Forward-Error Correction

Table of Contents1) Introduction 2) Related Work 3) Framework 4)... Read More

Constructionalist Parsing - Deciphering Natural Language

The research in the field of Natural Language Processing usually... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Axapta ? Selection Considerations

During the years of our consulting practice, which comes back... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Reporting ? Overview for Developer

Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more... Read More

The True Meaning of Freeware

The vast majority of us will have, at some point,... Read More

Internet Relay Chat - A Basic Introduction

What is IRC?IRC is Internet Relay Chat. It is a... Read More

The Bluebird Project

The objective for Zandi Digital is to make available clever... Read More

OSI Layers Model

IntroductionDuring the early years of our modern computer era, very... Read More

5 Easy File Management Tips in Microsoft Word

How many steps does it take you to locate and... Read More

A Symons Mark II Function Point Counting Example

I provide, here clear explanations and a count of function... Read More

Basic Steps To Optimize Your Internet Security

After seeing many people complain about their weak Internet security... Read More