Blogs

 TechCrunch published an interview with Mark Andreessen about how enterprise software is on the cusp of a renaissance.  Silicon Valley is cheering.  Jobs will be created.  Innovations will be the norm as enterprises look to make changes to their internal offerings.

As someone who has been working for and with a company whose software was created with an Enterprise (capital E) mindset, my response is "what took so long?".  When Brian Chan wrote the first line of code for Liferay 10 years ago, the fabric of Enterprise Software was changed forever.  With the advent of Liferay, companies had a robust, feature-rich, scalable option to the expensive, expansive and limiting offerings by other vendors.  Because of our open source model, the community has helped Liferay to grow and mature organically.  While other vendors have crippled innovation on other platforms, Liferay has encouraged and fostered it.  

So, to all of the upstarts who will be entering into the Enterprise market, I recommend that you follow Liferay's philosophy.  Be open.  Foster a community.  Innovate ruthlessly.  Play well with others.  Create value while not being cheap.  

Enterprises are waiting for the next innovations.  Software creators need to make something worth buying.  Software vendors need to have a business model that makes buying from the traditional players less risky.