Business & Technology Nexus

Salesforce.com has unveiled a new on-Demand Programming Language called ABAP, oops I mean PL/SQL, oops I mean APEX.

Take a look for yourselves. What is great is that potentially this forces partners into a proprietary salesforce.com scheme for building applications. Write Once, Run Only On Salesforce.com. But if they can generate the marketing buzz & get IT departments and start-ups drifting that way, they could be mighty successful. The lock-in works for their business model, and VC’s hate to fund a start-ups SaaS “learnings” on how to do 24x7x365.

Neat stuff!

I read a recent summary from Jason Busch on Emptoris’ (wildly successful?) strategy and was confused by the “Oracle” part. Oracle has 3 Procurement product lines – Oracle E-Business Suite, Peoplesoft Enterprise, and JD Edwards. Each of these products lines are, to my knowledge, being maintained by the Big O ad infinitum. Plus, each is receiving at least some new features pre-”Fusion”. Fusion, let’s remember, is where all the suites magically merge into 1 mega-suite that “tastes great and is less filling.”

Now, perhaps Fusion will be a big mess & perhaps it may never come close to coming out on schedule, but those are suppositions at this point. So I can’t seem to connect the dots and get the “Oracle is end-of-life’ing some of its historic product lines”. If there are upgrade paths to Fusion that’s not quite the same thing.

The other thing I’d say is that Oracle is still packed with talent in Procurement. I think it’s silly to suggest they’ve “lost their way.” They’ll do just fine… So, while on the one hand I think it would be normal and customary for Emptoris to sell into an Oracle account, I’d need more evidence of a lot of “rip and replace” Emptoris wins.

My gut says it’s probably just a little overspin on the marketing messages.. As I’ve offered in previous posts, I wish Emptoris and Team Avner the best of luck.

I was sure the goofiest picture of me that would ever hit the press was in Fortune on November 13, 2000. I was seated behind Larry Ellison in the center-spread. Only problem was I looked like an adviser-turned-alien.

Well, I was wrong. Here I am 4th from the left (and trying to look cool) on the cover of Monday’s Red Herring. :)

It admit it was fun sneaking onto Oracle HQ to do the shoot. And it was a blast talking, even if for a few minutes, with other “graduates.”

To be sure, Oracle has produced a lot of talent over the years. It’s nice to be in such good company, even if a little pressure “to do great things” comes with it.

And just in case you’re wondering, I didn’t get advance copy of the article. So I’ll be understandably anxious this weekend as I wait to see whether anything I said seems to make sense in print.

Have a great wknd!

I got into a discussion recently about the value of outsourcing the establishment of contracts and pricing for an enterprise’s goods and services. And red flashing alarm bells went off in my head. Wait, I said, that’s just like Healthcare GPO’s here in the US. Popularized in the 90′s, today the shift is away from them. And for good reason – these middleman are sticking it to hospitals. At least according to a detailed report issued July 20th, 2006 by the International Center for Corporate Accountability. Some highlights:

“The genesis of GPOs can be found in the common and quite essential activity where a number of small organizations combine their purchasing power to gain buying leverage…”

“GPO’s, whose role should be to create efficiencies and economies in the delivery of services, have grown at the expense of the hospitals and their patients”

“..the Medicare anti-kickback safe harbor allowed the GPOs to charge an administrative fee of 3% from the suppliers on all purchases made by their member hospitals. However, various government investigations, private lawsuits, and reports in the news media indicated that in a significant number of instances, GPOs administrative fee had significantly exceeded the 3% level envisioned by Congress and ranged from 5% to as high as 18%.”

This report is an interesting read for those considering working through middlemen instead of negotiating their own contracts. With a good understanding of the profit margins, or better yet, an agreement on flat-fee based subscription, enterprises can save time and find great values. But any business model that involves a % markup on each SKU has to be suspect. Let’s face it, a 1% markup on prices for 10MM in spend is a lot of money to be paying. Unless the vendor can prove his pricing still beats what you could have negotiated on your own.

I would love to hear your own stories about working with GPO’s – either in healthcare or anny other industry. Comment here or drop me a line at drstephe at gmail dot com.

I’m just curious. Do you folks think office space in Silicon Valley is pricey? It sure used to be. But nowadays, in part due to the incredible rush to offshore anything involving, well, w-o-r-k, the San Francisco Bay Area is suddenly and surprisingly not such a bad place to start a business.

I’d love someone to provide me quantitative proof or a counter-, but the rumor is there is 5 million square feet of excess office space in the valley. Rents have come down. And it seems likely that this is the bottom.

So if you’re in the market, make sure you shop around. I’ve heard of some renters who’ve received the first 6 months free. Naturally, it’s tougher in San Francisco itself – but unlike a few years ago, you can get into some pretty good deals in the range of $1.50 to $2.00 all-in.

If you’re a hardcore procurement guy, and you’re willing to settle for non-Class A on the Peninsula, the price plunges. Do I hear $0.50/sq ft anyone? $0.45?

I found Eric Schmidt’s vision of a Google “Political Truth-o-meter” pretty interesting. Combine it with a video clip from Technorati’s CEO defining blogging and you’d think everyone, due to the Internet, was headed for superhuman status. Or at least that our individual rights were increasing..

What I mean by that is there’s an underlying premise to these visions – one where each us has more “power” than ever before. There’s only 1 problem. It’s just not true.

The flaw in their logic is simple. They say – if “information is power,” and the Internet provides ubiquitous access to information, then people who use the Internet are more powerful. So watch out, because when we all are online (as a people) we will be supremely powerful and will be checking-up on politicians, having our voices heard, etc.

But once information is truly ubiqitous, guess what? Information is no longer powerful, at least not to the individual. The whole reason it was powerful before was because some people had it and some people didn’t. In the future, I’d argue information is the just the requisite ante for a much different poker game.

In an age of ubiquitous information access, those who manipulate information & massage it to their own benefit are the ones who will “win”. In that way, in the information age, Power is Power. Power may represent itself differently. It may be “sneaky” and hide itself behind seemingly independent sources. But it will be there nonetheless.

Do note I happily distinguish between the power of the individual, which is what I’ve talked about here, and the power of the collective. Collectively, the Internet can and is and should continue to provide greater power. Unless we are manipulated. Except in China. Except, I guess, for when it doesn’t.

I have no idea what this all means of course. After all, I’m just a start-up guy building enterprise software. But I am ready for more Internet evangelists to take off their rose-colored glasses and start analyzing what the future might bring more critically. What happens, for instance, when privacy rights trend towards 0 and machine automation becomes increasingly hard to correct? Oh no, look out, not Sandra Bullock again! (Vague and poorly worded reference to 1995 film “The Net“, apologies in advance if you’ve seen it)