Happy New Year, it's been a few slow weeks for the Ponderings as I took some time to concentrate on my analog responsibilities, most importantly family and my funds. The good, no great news is that 2006 was a banner year on all fronts and as a proponent of trend spotting, I'm sure 2007 bodes even more rewarding personally and professionally.
I've been actively soliciting feedback from my extended network and have some clear ideas on how to make Ponderings more rewarding for my readers and, in turn, myself. More details on what I've got planned in the next few days.
Today, I want to start with the first of a series of 2006 review posts. Last year, like any good blogger, I made some predictions about how 2006 would unfold. All in all, I'm pleased with how they turned out, particularly because my crystal ball was in the shop the day I typed these up.
2006 Predictions:
- NetSuite will either come public OR be acquired by Oracle [Larry Ellison is the majority shareholder in privately-held NetSuite]...I was a little early, but it's a foregone certainty in 2007
- Readen Commerce might also make its way to the public markets...this didn't happen, although the Amex partnership was clearly a step in that direction
- Oracle will become heavy-handed in their marketing message behind SaaS, proclaiming themselves as the "leader" in On-Demand software applications. They will make this claim thanks to the combination of Siebel OnDemand, Peoplesoft OnDemand and their own ASP-rooted efforts...Oracle made the claims, although I'm not sure anyone took them seriously
- SAP will take a measured approach to this market, as they recognize the limitations of offering hosted solutions in large enterprises for core transactional applications that encompass much of the mySAP suite...knocked this one out of the park like Ryan Howard at Citizen's Bank
- A number of second-tier public software companies will try to ride
the SaaS wave by announcing new hosted versions of their software...but
a closer inspection will show them to lack the true multi-tenant
functionality needed...check
- The VC lovefest for SaaS will continue apace, with announcements of more and more "me too" investments muddying the SaaS landscape...check, although I saw more innovation on the SaaS front than my initial skepticism would've thought
- Dave Duffield's Workday will garner some attention, and he'll likely acquire his way into a broader suite of functionality than the HR/Payroll early forecasters envision...Dave, Aneel and friends certainly helped my batting average
- Supply chain software will rise from the ashes...i2 is back on the map, Manugistics is recapitalized, Aspen has a new story to tell
- Maintenance revenues will become the new battlefront between customer and vendor...Anecdotally this is happening; as many CIOs told me in conversations over the years; but as a meme this has yet to really reach a crescendo
- Indian outsourcing firms will become the primary lever for trends in application development, QA and testing...Not sure I saw enough evidence of this to claim a win; maybe in 2007
- M&A will continue to be a prominent theme among enterprise software vendors and investors...slam dunk
- Microsoft will be omnipresent...in retrospect, this wasn't a very aggressive prediction. I was right, but 2007 is shaping up to be the Year of Vista, whereas 2006 was the Year of Vista Delays
- Business intelligence will engender a slowdown after a torrid 24 months...this certainly happened, although rampant BI M&A rumors kept the space (and stocks) in play
- Open source still won't be ready for prime-time among enterprise-class applications vendors...if I was wrong on this one, the open source apps firms need to do a better job of PR
Up next: 1) 2006 Year-in-Review, 2) 2006 Software Stock Retrospective & 3) 2007 Predictions
Note: At the time of
this
writing I, and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over,
maintained long equity positions in CRM, MSFT and SAP but did not
maintain a position (long or short) in ORCL, ITWO, MANU or AZPN. We also may, at
times, carry derivative options on underlying positions as a hedge. 
predictions 2006 software irregulars enterprise irregulars review woodrow
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