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Data Value and Volume are Inversely Proportional
In 2006, Clive Humby coined the phrase “Data is the new oil”. This is often misinterpreted as “Data powers the economy”, particularly by folks who sell data processing and storage, but it’s useful to see what someone who actually uses data says. In 2013 Michael Palmer, of the Association of National Advertisers, expanded on Humby’s…
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Proving a Negative
Proving a negative is a tautological impossibility right? That’s the security business. Prove that you haven’t been hacked. Of course, many vendors realize this is impossible. Fact is, it would require the customer to understand everything they do in total detail so they could call out what was bad behavior. Once again, impossible. What else…
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Licensing Roundup
I’ve written a number of articles now about licensing software: here’s a guide through them.
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Finding the Price
Let’s dive once more into the licensing breach! Here’s the background: What’s not covered? Well, when I wrote this post about evaluating a side business, it came close to the process for defining the price of a cost-plus service or product. That’s not a particularly hard task in theory: Of course, this simple approach will…
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Do I have a product here?
Sometimes I chat with people who are interested in starting a side business, or even leaving their $dayjob. That can be a really rewarding option if you’ve got the opportunity. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with not doing it! Some people simply don’t want to run a small business along with doing the value-adding work…
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Know everything, then automate!
The concept of virtual patching has set me off on a small rant. If you’re not familiar, the concept is something like this: vulnerability scanners determine that PC42 in the CritStuff system has a nasty problem, but you can’t patch it for reasons. So instead, software magically figures out that exploiting this vulnerability requires access…
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Offering Multiple License Models
I’ve written quite a bit about licensing software now, you can start here to follow the whole thread. In The Platform License Problem, I mentioned some free pricing as a hide-the-sausage technique. When there are multiple markets to find product fit for, and the vendor has a software base that tackles those markets, the platform…
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The Platform License Problem
In my other three posts about licensing, I discussed simple products. But what about platform companies? A platform company sells two types of products: the platform, which enables everything else, and the use cases which rely on that platform to solve specific problems. The key to the platform company definition is that the solutions will not work…
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Platform and Partners, Round Two
After reviewing this post on platforms and partnerships, there’s more to dig into. By definition, you can’t cross the Bill Gates line by yourself, but who should you be seeking partnership with? Developers who consult or consultants who develop? What tools should you build for them? At the end of that article, I felt that…
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Licensing models, self-service style
In my other two posts about licensing, I suggested that flat rate pricing is best for customers, but impossible in enterprise sales because of the variable and high costs of making a sale. Those costs are difficult to understand if you haven’t been exposed before, but they are all too real. Weeks spent in negotiating…