Unless you’re taking digital detox, you probably heard about big news in enterprise software world – Oracle buys Netsuite. The original press release is here. According to press release – “Oracle and NetSuite cloud applications are complementary, and will coexist in the marketplace forever,” said Mark Hurd, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle. “We intend to invest heavily in both products—engineering and distribution.”
Analysts are not so confident about complimentary nature of Oracle and Netsuite products. Some can say, there is a full overlap in product portfolios. Among many articles, my attention was caught by Michael Fauscette’s article Oracle’s last deal. Article brings an interesting perspective on the reasons Oracle is buying Netsuite. My favorite is this one:
Perhaps the more interesting opportunity for Oracle is in the “tribal” knowledge of a company that has been in SaaS / cloud computing from the very beginning of the idea (or maybe you could argue before the idea was really completely formed). Oracle has made progress with its cloud products, and has had a strong push for the sales and sales support resources to move from traditional perpetual licenses and on premises implementations to subscription and cloud, but that particular journey has not been without bumps (some would argue those bumps were more the size of mountains). It can only benefit from the knowledge and experience of a sales force that has only sold in the cloud/subscription model.
It made me think about PLM market, vendors and cloud trends. The perspective of “tribal knowledge” and sales experience is interesting. CAD and PLM vendors can learn something from that. CAD and PLM vendors are in a full swing developing and re-branding their solution to the cloud. But the core business of all these companies are to sell on-premise packaged software. Very few of them had previous cloud / SaaS experience. At the same time, as it sounds from the article above, actually cloud tribal knowledge can be a big differentiation factor when it comes to SaaS and cloud business.
What is my conclusion? To build culture and tribal knowledge takes time. Are there companies, teams and organizations in the world experienced in PLM cloud sales and knowledge? Is it possible to build one in a short period of time? Will existing CAD and PLM organizations be able to learn quick how to sell and develop solutions for cloud eco-systems? I don’t have answers, but the question of how to build one is clearly in my mind. Just my thoughts..
Best, Oleg
Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.
Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion about BOM can be unintentionally biased.
