SoftGram Bi-Weekly for 08.14.2005, Vol. 1, No. 4 A Softletter Publication ========================================================= To unsubscribe from SoftGram, please use the link below and check the "unsubcribe from SofGram checkbox" at the bottom of the form: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/Profile.aspx You can resume your subscription anytime by returning to this form and unchecking this box. If you have not changed your profile, your username is the first letter of your first name and the first seven letters of your last name. Your password is "softletter." To update your address or change your profile, please use the link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/myMain.aspx To ensure you continue to receive your copy of Softletter, please add SoftGram@ezine.softletter.com to your white list. If you have any questions or concerns, please E-mail RickChapman@softletter.com _________________________________________________________ The latest issue of SoftGram is brought to you by: License Technologies Group Since 1996, License Technologies Group (LTG) has been the established leader in providing solutions specifically designed for software publishers to more efficiently manage their software licensing business. Our systems and services support software license management, renewals management, eCommerce, Digital Rights Management, Partner Relationship Management and global fulfillment. We understand all of the nuances and best practices necessary to harness the power and profitability volume license and compliance programs can provide. Our experience in providing these solutions helps softwa practices and gain a strategic advantage on their competition. Smart Tools. Big Savings. http://www.licensetech.com ******************************* Business Objects Integrate Crystal Reports XI in your application. Find out why more than 700 OEM partners, including Microsoft, IBM, PeopleSoft and SAP, have taken advantage of the business intelligence (BI) industry's most advanced and complete platform for reporting, query and analysis, performance management, and data integration to increase both revenues and customer satisfaction. Find out more at: http://www.bobjects.com/email_imp/bi_nl/june05/infoline_resource.html _________________________________________________________ UPCOMING SOFTLETTER SURVEYS: As you may know, Softletter and Software Success publish a series of annual salary surveys that cover senior job titles in the software industry. This current questionnaire covers Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) compensation. We're looking for some fairly standard information--in particular, a comparison of "base salary" vs. "variable pay" (bonuses, commissions, etc.) for your most recent full year and for the previous year. We'll use this data to identify trends and current compensation benchmark that you can use to see how your own salaries compare to pay levels at comparable companies. In addition, we compare salaries based on company development stages, an important factor that's rarely taken into account in other salary surveys. As usual, everyone who supplies data for this survey will receive a complimentary copy of the final report. Of course, all responses will be strictly confidential. We won't disclose or identify data about any individuals or about participating companies. If you'd like to take part in this survey, you can fill out an online survey form at: http://www.softletter.com/survey/cmoone.htm Please note that the deadline for submitting data is Friday, September 23rd. Final survey results will appear in our September 30th issue. _________________________________________________________ THE LATEST ARTICLE IN THE ADVISORTY BOARD SECTION OF SOFTLETTER COVERS: RSS as a Replacement for E-mail?, Part I of II E-mail marketing was a phenomenon in the late 1990s and through the early 2000s. E-mail is cheap, quick to deploy, and allows for fast testing and modification. Early E-mail campaigns in the software industry enjoyed response rates of 5%+, numbers that most marketers regard as signs one has entered a state of nirvana. But the flood of spam and phishing has had a heavy impact on response rates, with average figures dropping from .5% to 1.5% on average, though high-quality house files that are kept rigorously clean and are relevant to an audience perform better (2% to 3%, on average). As the effectiveness of E-mail has declined, several technologies have been introduced in an attempt to increase its effectiveness, most notably “rich” E-mail formats that use links to servers to increase the interactivity of messages and “application-based” systems that integrate electronic messaging directly into applications (an Israeli company introduced this technology in the late 1990s and there have been several attempts to gain wider usage for this approach, most notably by Macrovison). However, the success of all these efforts has been limited to date and most companies still rely on E-mail as their primary means of electronic direct marketing. As response rates continue to drop RSS (real simple syndication) has been heralded as a potential successor to E-mail. RSS is a reappearance of “push” technology introduced by once hot, now forgotten, PointCast. Early push products failed because of bandwidth and compatibility issues; RSS is a more lightweight approach that takes advantage of the Internet’s infrastructure and XML, though there are still incompatibilities among the different RSS products. RSS systems are comprised of two main components, an RSS reader (also called an aggregator) and an RSS feed (also referred to as a channel). Both separate readers and programs that integrate with products such as Outlook are available. An RSS reader allows a user to subscribe to an XML feed coming from a web site and notifies them when content on the web site changes. The reader allows the user to view the updated contents on the site, usually in the form of a headline or brief excerpt in a viewing panel. An RSS feed is created by formatting a web site’s content with a series of specific XML tags. This can be done via a blog, by hand with an editor, or with several more advanced tools on the market. Once implemented, most web sites indicate the presence of a “feed” via a special icon, often an orange button with XML on it. The feed can then be dragged or copied into the aggregator; feed creators have very limited control over how graphics and text will be positioned and appear as they are read. (In the event that a site does not offer a feed, there are services that allow a pseudo feed to be created from any site; this basically consists of notifying the reader when a site has been altered or changed.) Some of these services will only accept a new feed after qualifying and categorizing it; others follow an “anything goes” paradigm. Current estimates for RSS usage among Internet users range between 2% to 4%, but a recent Softletter survey indicates that high-tech audiences are heavier users of RSS as we arrived at a figure closer to 11% (and some market categories, such as developers, seem to be trending higher). Nonetheless, RSS is at this time an ineffective direct marketing tool and it’s unlikely to become one soon; we’ll discuss why in the next issue of Softletter and suggest where and how RSS can bolster your marketing efforts. Excerpted from the August 31st issue of Softletter (http://www.softletter.com) _________________________________________________________ UPCOMING EVENTS INCLUDE: Marketing and Selling Open Source Software November 10th and 11th, San Jose, CA Marketing and Selling Open Source is the first seminar dedicated to focusing on the growing business of selling Open Source products and services. Open Source has made the transition from a novelty to a powerful economic force in the software industry. This seminar answers the question: How do you grow a successful business using Open Source as a platform to profits? The seminar agenda will cover: * Successful Open Source business models * Case studies from companies successfully selling Open Source software and services * Fear, uncertainty, and doubt: Combating Open Source FUD * Managing intellectual property in the context of Open Source development * The GPL (and its myriad cousins): What are your obligations? * Integrating proprietary and Open Source products into your business model * The growth of Open Source: A look into trends, growth, and new markets The cost to attend Softletter's two day "Marketing and Selling Open Source Software, 2005" is $895 but if you register by September 30th you can register for $795 and save $100. Register today at: http://www.softletter.com/pages/MSOSS.shtml SAVE MORE WITH GROUP REGISTRATIONS! Save an additional $100 if you register two people from the same company, $200 per additional attendee if you register three or more! To book your group today, please call toll free 1.888.479.6663 ******************************* Email & Web Marketing to Generate More Sales Leads Save $100 off the admission for MarketingSherpa's 2005 B-to-B Lead Generation Summit on October 24-25 in the Boston area or November 17-18 in San Francisco. Register by 10/15/05 for savings. - 4 Case Studies presented by marketers at Sybase, Red Hat and more. - 6 advanced seminars on lead generation via search marketing & PR. - 4 advanced seminars on nurturing leads to shorten the sales cycle. Save $100 before 10/15/05 at http://SoftGram.MarketingSherpa.com ________________________________________________________ THE SOFTLETTER FORUMS ARE FREE NEW on the Softletter Forums: Subscribe to a thread! Post a question, subscribe to the thread, then anytime a new entry is made to the thread, you'll receive an E-mail notifying you of that fact. Talk to the Softletter editors and share knowledge with your industry peers From The Softletter Forums: "Do you have a source document I could review in the archives. This issue is hightened for us everytime we launch a new product or if we request outside beta testers to review an application. I just want to ensure that all my i's are dotted and my t's are crossed in this area. Thank you." Read this thread at: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/forums.aspx _________________________________________________________ INFO POPS are sponsored by: Macrovision Stop relying on generic e-mail blasts to sell your software Now software companies can easily send targeted messages directly to their end user's desktop with Update Service - part of the Macrovision FLEXnet platform. Download the 'Going Beyond Email' white paper. Learn how you can achieve a 70% response rate and generate more revenue from customers and trial users. Find out more at: http://clk.atdmt.com/MSI/go/mvo0130000030msi/direct/01/ ******************************* INFO POPS In a setback for Microsoft Corp., a high-ranking Google Inc. executive will be allowed to help the Mountain View, Calif.-based company set up a research and development facility in China while a case over his hiring comes to trial in January, a judge decided today. Kai-Fu Lee will be able to employ "his general knowledge, personal attributes, general reputation and skills" to set up and staff the Google center, Judge Steven Gonzalez of Superior Court of Washington State in King County wrote in his 13-page preliminary injunction. Excerpted from: http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,104590,00.html?source=NLT_PM&nid=104590 ******************************* The implications of Oracle's $5.85 billion acquisition of Siebel Systems are unmistakable: It may mean the end of the best-of-breed market for customer-relationship-management software that Siebel created. Siebel's model--in which customers bought highly complex CRM apps and underwent exhaustive integration efforts to connect them with other systems--has fallen out of favor with some businesses in the past few years. Instead, they're getting CRM as part of an applications suite from vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, and as a subscription service from fast-growing competitors such as Salesforce.com. "We may have just eliminated the middle model," says Woody Griggs, a managing partner in the CRM practice at systems integrator Accenture, about the Siebel acquisition. Excerpted from: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170702629 ******************************* In ever-growing numbers, CIOs want to take advantage of the many benefits that free and open-source software have to offer their companies. But there's a snag. Their lawyers can be grouchy when it comes to open-source. They claim opening the door to open-source software carries unacceptable legal risk. Many imply naively or wrongly that proprietary software doesn't carry its own risks. Some describe open-source software in pejorative terms and repeat the biased conclusions of well-financed FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) programs. They point to assertions made by high-profile CEOs that proprietary software companies will soon come knocking on their doors looking for money to compensate them for intellectual property that open-source allegedly infringes. Some lawyers may even counsel their clients to steer clear altogether (as if that were a choice), never mind if that means losing out on the strategic opportunities open-source offers. Excerpted from: http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,104508,00.html?source=NLT_OPN&nid=104508 ******************************* It is well known even by XML proponents that processing XML files are slow. When a certain technology scales poorly and runs slow on the desktop, it also scales poorly and runs slow on a server. When software is slowed down by more than an order of magnitude, it is clear that XML will always knock application performance back 10 years no matter how fast our hardware gets. Most computer users would pay a huge premium for hardware that is 2 times faster, so why would they want software that was up to 98 times slower? The next time your computer is crawling along, just blame the XML bloat monster. Excerpted from: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=101&tag=nl.e539 ******************************* The Electronic Software Association estimates that in 2005, worldwide consumer spending on video games -- hardware and software -- will hit about $28-billion (U.S.). PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP predicts that figure will rise to $55-billion by 2008, and more and more of those games are coming from small -- but growing -- Canadian developers. In the past year, more than 40 of the top 200 games in North America were made or worked on in Canada. Excerpted from: http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050915.gttwcangame15/BNStory/AtPlay/ ________________________________________________________ CHANGE YOUR SOFTGRAM SUBSCRIPTION : If you no longer wish to receive from SoftGram, please use the link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/Profile.aspx If you have not changed your profile, your username is the first letter of your first name and the first seven letters of your last name. 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