The tech world is all too familiar with Twitter's "fail whale" and have become accustomed to Gmail failures (which are inevitably chronicled on Twitter.) And while sometimes it's infrastructure (such as routers and switches) rather than software that fails, it often seems as if we too readily accept that software will inevitably breakdown.
Mark Donsky, director of product management at Coverity, commented recently about a recent static analysis of open-source projects performed on the Scan site that showed a 71.9 percent correlation between the number of lines of code and number of defects found.
This is of course, not an open-source problem but a general issue that occurs as more code is integrated into products. I've been told that Windows is developed with two quality assurance people to every engineer as the product has grown over the years.
Coverity is focused on software integrity and advocates static analysis early in the development cycle. While testing of all kinds, including static analysis are obviously good ideas, the tools and methods vary dramatically by engineering organization. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University and the Object Management Group (OMG) recently paired up to form a consortium to establish standards for software quality.
... Read moreIf the first quarter was the apocalypse, then the second quarter offers a glimmer of hope for VC community. New data from Chubby Brain shows that with the "numbers tallied, Q2 2009 saw 61% more money flowing from venture capital investors to entrepreneurs over the prior quarter." Good news for all.
I'm part of the camp that believes a downturn is a great time to start a company and I suspect we'll see many more fundings in the second half of the year--especially as too many VCs chase too few deals.
Second quarter highlights:
- Deal values totaled $5.329 billion. This represents a nearly 61 percent increase over the $3.314 billion of investment tracked in the first quarter.
- Early stage investment in Seed and Series A rounds accounted for 35 percent of the number of deals.
- The health care sector saw the greatest level of funding, garnering 37 percent of investment dollars.
- Nine of the 10 most active venture firms in the quarter are based in Silicon Valley.
The heavy lean toward health care is the only surprise in the financings, but it makes sense in context of how long it takes for those types of products to be developed.
View the full report on Chubby Brain's website.
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.
I had a great time talking to a group of Stanford kids yesterday as part of a VC quick-start program where teams compete for spaces in a summer program that gives them office space and a bit of guidance toward building a company that they can then pitch to VCs at the end of the summer. Sort of like an entrepreneurial boot camp.
Let me state that these kids (and man did I feel old) are smart. Book smart, socially affable and well aware of how you become an entrepreneur in the Valley. They also are smart enough to recognize that developing software is a different game than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.
Only one group was developing code that would be installed as opposed to delivered as a service. The "enterprise" team didn't have much of a choice as their product was more software infrastructure/plumbing than it was a service.
As I drove back to San Francisco I thought through why the enterprise is really pretty boring, even if it pays better than anything else. Note that all of these words are mine and that we didn't cover this too much in the discussion.
So why does the new generation eschew on-premise enterprise software?
Enterprise software is slow-moving -- It's been argued that innovation in legacy products occurs on the fringe. This is exemplified in open source, where developers scratch their own itch as well as in software as a service, where Salesforce and other companies found weaknesses in customer delivery.
Installers, maintenance and professional services -- Unless you have experience already with any of these things they are not interesting. I'm not sure they are interesting even if you have experience (they're not, I'm being nice). Every VC will tell you that "pro serv" is not a good business model.
Colleges (and grad schools) don't teach software history -- The only slightly negative thing I can say is that the kids weren't terribly well-versed in software history. Of course, as good Stanford folk they knew every VC and were obviously aware of big companies. But they really didn't care. No one coming out of school today is looking toward behemoths for new ideas or even technological breakthroughs. That said, the enterprise is where the money is.
Basking in the warm glow of VCs -- Ask a recent Stanford grad about venture capital and odds are they can rattle off three or four VCs who spoke at their classes. Ask them who wrote Unix or where it came from and you get blank stares. I suppose it all comes down to what you want to retain, and the Valley is constantly reinventing itself but I miss the days when Dennis Ritchie was a star.
Enterprise = old people -- Sitting in a room as mid-thirties guy with a bunch of young twenty-somethings, I felt old. And not because the group was updating their Facebook status (they weren't) but because they weren't carrying any of the enterprise baggage that so many of us are saddled with.
When you think enterprise software do you think high degree of innovation or cumbersome and expensive?
My discussion with the group was eye-opening and makes me think that the Valley and venture capital, while certainly due for a correction, will continue to churn out great new technologies. My only regret is not forcing them all to give me stock in their new ventures.
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.
I was somewhat shocked by the stellar results Oracle recently reported, considering the sorry state of the economy. I even called an analyst friend to find out if maybe there was some house of cards ala Computer Associated that explained the consistent rise in revenue and margin. But I was reminded of two simple facts explaining why Oracle remains dominant:
- Applications drive database sales
- Oracle owns pretty much everything
Oracle's acquisition streak has given the company an enormous breadth of offerings (say what you will about quality of the software) and the attempt at offering it's own Linux variant gives it an OS that's passable if not meaningful. But, I don't know that owning the operating system is important to the growth of sales in applications or databases. (Note: Matt Asay wrote a very good post about why Ubuntu should be Oracle's Linux of choice.)
Oracle applications and databases have to run on an operating system, but the operating system doesn't necessarily drive software sales, or sell databases. The OS may be a point of influence, but doesn't drive the dollar values that you get from software.
Meanwhile, Oracle has amassed such a wealth of software that it can not only drive it's own database sales through upgrades and replacements (JD Edwards or Siebel running on DB2 seems unlikely) but it can up-sell databases to customers of BEA or any of the other myriad applications it now owns.
Add MySQL into the equation and Oracle can sell you a database pretty much anytime for any purpose, to support any application (which you can probably buy from them too.)
This leads into some questions regarding Cisco's strategy, based on the idea that hardware should sell applications, as well as IBM's strategy, where services have often sold software and hardware. The future is of course a mix of all of these strategies, but it's not clear that another company is as well positioned as Oracle.
While certainly not unstoppable, Oracle's execution has been very impressive, especially in a down economy.
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.
Ever wonder what the sales guys at BigCos like IBM are thinking about? Seems that IBM has assembled "what it calls a Viper 500 program with IBM's account teams to replace Oracle in more than 600 accounts."
I do enjoy a slap-fight amongst software vendors..."I am actively hiring people to go kick their teeth in," said Mike Borman, IBM vice president, worldwide sales for the IBM Software Group in a wide ranging 90 minute interview earlier this week before the hostile Oracle bid for BEA.
Despite it sounding a little bit silly, this is actually a good idea. Where do you go for growth when you have a significant market footprint? You coordinate direct attacks on your competition. (I must note that Viper 500 sounds like someone has been reading too much Tom Clancy.)
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