What kind of price erosion have you seen over the past few years?
Web application and licensing driven erosion. Sorta like when Microsoft packaged application pricing started to hit (in North America at least) many vendors of packaged apps. Way back when you bought dBase for 900$. Didn't take long before the new model took over.
Web applications and pricing models seem to command lower overall per seat prices, although in some cases many more seats.
high-margin license sales will erode in value due to a paradigm shift caused by emerging technologies e.g. Windows2000-based web folders, WebDAV, etc
Web folders and WebDAV are not DM, nor are they workflow or image capture or eforms or ...
On the other hand, some pieces of the puzzle will ultimately show up in the underlying platforms (as in HTML/XML/other XXX-L specs) and operating systems and messaging environments (Exchange and Lotus, perhaps Communicator).
However, waiting for these things to evolve will cost many organizations in terms of lost opportunity and advantage. Bringing all the pieces together continues to be a complex task, most likely because how documents are generated, employed and destroyed, and how they interact with work processes - remains very specific to individuals and organizations.
This work continues to be hard. I think vertical applications that can be replicated over and over, makes a lot of sense.
. Unfortunately for them, the Y2K thing has prevented them from turning their tech.leadership into big money at the very point in time when it is, in every other way, ripe for them to do so.
You are probably correct.
Also I'd be very surprised if a large # of (the smarter!) key engineers don't have their bags packed or have left by this point. Since most engineers in the Bay Area are lured by stock options and DCTM's stock price has not exactly been a rocket in 3 years after IPO, I suspect that most of the engineers who built the technology foundation have vested most of their shares and left.
I'm not so sure about this. Option plans take time to vest; DCTM despite their incredible gaffes lately would appear to remain a sound company with a future. Those options will again be worth something. They are not going to turn from an industry leader to a dog overnight (stock might, but not the company). .COM startups might be appealing, but who knows what the value of some of them will be by the time employee options are ready to vest? |
