I finally had some time to review the Connect-Care acquisition PR and their website in depth. I found this particular paragraph in the PR interesting:
“While our software is functionally similar, we believe that our web-based .NET architecture and highly customizable product will be a major incentive for Connect-Care customers to consider upgrading over time to Firstwave products. Further, and perhaps most importantly, many of their customers may take advantage of private-labeling the Firstwave CORE Integrated Development Environment to develop their own vertical software packages. We could not add a better customer base than software houses. The opportunity to utilize our technology in partnerships and private labeling with Connect-Care customers is extremely exciting to Firstwave.” Mr. Brock surmised."
From that paragraph, I expected to see supporting information on the C-C website that would indicate that they market to "software houses". Maybe I missed something, but that doesn't appear to be the case. None of their profiled accounts are software houses. And, I don't see any indication in other areas of the website that would attract a "software house" to their solutions.
[Note: I wonder if C-C realizes that their PDF file is cut off in their Alltel profile?]
Perhaps the "software house" mystique is just more of RTB's posturing to make their new "CORE IDE" sound like the future of the company. I have to admit that I got a chuckle out of one of the new officer's comment that he had "never seen anything like it in the CRM industry". That's almost an echo of RTB's comment from the Red Chip conference a while back. The only difference was that he added the "in the CRM industry" phrase. Either the speaker was truly impressed with the IDE, or he was coached to say something like that, or he was doing some of his own posturing and playing on RTB's ego.
I think FSTW's CORE IDE is just a facade built on top of .NET's IDE and uses Visio's structural drawing capabilities. Thus, "CORE" uses functionality that was already provided by .NET, then ties it into FSTW application specific generation. Admittedly, I haven't seen it. But, I have seen and used .NET's. It's hard to believe that somebody came up with an entirely new, never before seen technique to add visualization to the product development cycle.
Even if it is something really spiffy, it will take quite a bit of convincing for "software houses" to private label it. There's a big gap between "significant interest" and a signature on the bottom line. In any case, I wish them luck with it.
All my opinions, of course.
TED |
