Startups for Who?
Posted by Dev Acct
It seems more and more that the tech community is starting to rumble about the possibilities of web 2.0 applicatoins being developed and used in an enterprise setting and for what reason? They have the money. As exits in the market become increasingly scarce, the need for diversification into new markets with great web technologies is necessary.
I personally am a major proponent of building applications for enterprise models despite the often times overbearing requirements and lack of “fun” that might be involved. It seems that right now, applications are being developed for a percent of a percent of the population that is using the internet for “productive ” purposes. Although I think it is great that this development occurs and it must continue to promote innovation, I often wonder why enterprise and large scale commercial applications are left relatively untouched. Don’t get me wrong, I like cool tech applications as much as the next person but it just seems that there is an enormous market gap and the major players in that market (SAP, Cisco, etc.) have yet to really undertake the new opportunities that exist.
Although Startup Weekend is a totally open process and groups are free to choose what they develop and why, it would be interesting to see some groups start tackling enterprise issues. Enterprise applications will more likely than not require more complexity and development to integrate with their current infrastructure, but that just seems like more of a motivator on the quest to win the enterprise interwebs. I suppose this post is more of a personal view on how applications are trending right now but I certainly think that Startup Weekend, and activities like it, are great places to begin tackling these challenges.
4 Responses to “Startups for Who?”
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Pete Laurina said:
Actually, corporations are moving towards web based applications already. Except they don't post them publicly. Intranet applications are what companies (especially the IT departments) are asking for now. I work for a good sized company and our new development is 'web 2.0' based. Whether it's an internal application for submitting time off requests, development time tracking, or sales tracking. Companies are realizing the benefit to web based technologies with the quick deployment to the entire company, integration with existing network security models, and saved man hours each time they have to upgrade, and the top executives can get access to up to the minute stats from anywhere in the world.
I think all those trying to catch the social media train are going to realize one day they while they were chasing a train that was nearly filled to capacity they missed the empty limousine driving past them all.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Jmartens said:
You said:
"It seems more and more that the tech community is starting to rumble about the possibilities of web 2.0 applicatoins being developed and used in an enterprise setting…"
Seriously? You need to get out of your bubble and check out what is going on in the tech world. There are a number of companies doing web2.0 for the enterprise and traditional tech powerhouses are embracing it, too.
Statements like this and the one likening Boulder to the Valley make me think you are really, really out of touch with reality. You might try doing research before you write, it is a wonderful thing.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
clayton said:
Indeed, research is a wonderful thing. I was not implying that no one is tapping this space, rather that in comparison to the consumer wave the development for enterprise pales.
Certainly the tech giants understand the trend and see value in development but their business cycles and hurdle rates can be limiting factors for internal development. I agree with Pete's post above and have had experience with internal 'web 2.0' developments for large corporations but feel that more could definitely be done.
The post was also meant as possible motivation for future weekend to assess enterprise problems as in the past most development has typically been consumer-centric.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Chris Slee said:
Might just be me, but what IS a web 2.0 application? If it is the abstraction of usability from platform, or the ability to break an app up into small chunks that can be digested discreetly, then you're talking SOA not web 2.0. Why would you want to limit the consumption of functionality to a browser? If you talking AJAX as web 2.0 then I have seen enterprise apps go there already.
Might also be that 2 days might not be a lot of time to tackle a salesforce.com killer?
June 13th, 2008 at 10:45 am