Wither Collaborative Technology
Welcome to the Road Kill Diner
There is a legion of generic collaborative software roadkill. Most of the offerings were innovative and substantial technical achievements.
They all seem to go through the same 2-4 year lifecycle in the following order:
We are:
1.) Collaborative infrastructure, e.g., dial tone
2.) Consumer centered, e.g., B2C or C2C
3.) Business centered, e.g., value chain focus, B2B
4.) Enterprise focus, e.g., teamware, collaborative project management
By this time, these start-ups/entrepreneurs have used-up their capital, are burnt out and suffering from product management fatigue.
Some fail their way through 'enterprise focus' and settle in on a particular vertical. (5.)
The path to success here is to win over some domain experts and integrate deep vertical logic into the collaborative offering. This is still very risky and capital intensive, but really the only way to have a go in this space.
IMO, this lifecycle is a perfect reflection of what it should be; it's backwards. It is critical to *master* a vertical, before moving up and out.
Therefore, the wealth creation concerning open-source collaborative softwares must surround exploiting the vertical domain expertise and logic.
This approach creates/sustains the virtuous cycle that is elemental to open source success. It also creates the multiples and scale that would attract capital.
Broad-based, universal, open source collaborative information technologies sans specific vertical logic and focused application are a pipe dream mostly.
2:53:13 AM 
|
|
