Not sure what it is exactly, but I have this belief that 2010 is going to be a really, really good year. After the meltdown of 2008, and the recession of 2009 we sure do need a bounce back, but I think it’s going to be more than that.

Cloud computing will move beyond the hype (it has already by the way) and will enable new business models. In fact, it will not just enable new business models – I believe that in many cases it will force them for legacy providers.

Start-ups can now get going with little to no capital….this means more innovation from those that are natural inventors but where fund raising was a challenge. VCs may have to start to think about making many more but much smaller investments as, without the need for large capital expenditures, start-ups can become self sustaining much quicker.

For my own industry, let’s call it Enterprise Software, it is already being transformed by SaaS providers.
But, whether the application is hosted or on-premise, one of the big changes is the business model i.e. “how the customer pays”.

Customers do not want to pay millions of dollars in up-front cost and then gradually deploy the application over many months/years. Customers want flexibility in licensing, they want to pay for what they use, and align their costs with the value that they are receiving.

That’s a huge challenge for software companies that have built their business model on big, upfront perpetual license fees. Their investors have learned that model and, as is well documented, making the move from perpetual to subscription based licensing, causes a whole lot of pain on the GAAP revenue and the cash. Public investors don’t react well to that model change but I believe it is necessary for these companies very survival over the long term.

I want to watch the big boys in 2010 and see who makes the bravest moves and who is caught sitting on their hands.

For Nimsoft, we have just completed a tremendous 2009. Bookings, MRR, Cash, Profit – whatever measure you use, 2009 was a banner year for the company. I will try and get our results announced very quickly and I believe they will further encourage entrepreneurial companies that yes, it is possible to thrive even in a bad economy like 2009, if you offer value.

More later, got to get my kids back to school and then revisit that thing called an office.

Happy New Year

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 9:15 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.