A colleague who works within one of my company’s clients writes this email to me about a month ago: “I still find myself scratching my head at how to apply this line of advice (referring to a white paper I sent on permeable markets) to a large highly profitable business. In the last session [Spark [...]
Archive | Tech & Trends
Top 10 Trends for 2007
Top 10 Trends for 2007 High-Tech Markets: 1. The OS matters. With open source, mashups and mobile players all creating different and incompatible platforms, we believe the software platforms of the future may be layers that run across all those competing operating systems, with Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft WPF/E both key players, coming to market [...]
Top 10 Trends for 2007 High-Tech Markets
Rubicon has always served its clients by scouting trends and drawing out the implications to those high-tech companies seeking to craft winning strategies. To help you plan for the new year, here’s a look at what we think is going to matter in 2007, why it’s important, and what we think it means in terms of opportunities.
Worthy Adobe Intel
Check out a good piece of early sleuthing by Malik on Flash as a fundamental platform for software 2.0. Apparently, Adobe’s purchase of amicma suggests some new aspirations for the Flash technology giant. Let’s not forget the Adobe has the opportunity to blend Flash, PDF as two fundamental platform plays into a new UI.
Software Platforms of the Future
A very important trend to watch in 2007 will be the ongoing efforts to separate the operating system from the platform (the APIs and user interface that an application interacts with).
Key players in this movement include Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft WPF/E.
Symbiotic Relationships in Play
One of the fundamental truths about the high technology market today, is that consumers have tremendous power. Market power used to be much like a big castle surrounded by high walls and a moat to control access — Dell, Intel, and the former AT&T are all examples of companies that fared well under that model. [...]
In the Channel: VARs Put a Different Face on SaaS
According to a 2005 AMR Research study of 500 respondents representing companies of all sizes, more than 78 percent said they are currently using or considering SaaS. As ISVs push SaaS applications into the mainstream, ISVs and VARs need to consider likely changes to the channel economic model. One of these changes is likely to be a shift in the balance of power toward full-service VARs. While ISVs will find some of these changes hard to swallow, they need to keep in mind that this is the cost of extending the reach of their applications into additional market segments.
Video Use In Education
According to market research recently completed by Rubicon Consulting, video editing currently represents the fasting growing category of software sold into Education. More and more schools are producing videos, with even middle schools often broadcasting live announcement shows via in-school cable systems. Most new school construction now includes dedicated video studios for use by students and faculty. Despite all of these signs of impending breakout, Rubicon estimates that only five percent of K-12 teachers currently use video creation in their classes, so the market remains a very early one at this point.
This white paper analyzes the current situation, some best practices for adoption and offers projections for what is next.