Running the REPAMA rule over…Cloud Computing
I have decided that the time is now right to take a detailed look at the marketing strategies and tactics adopted by the various vendors in the different market segments that make up the cloud computing market. This means that we’ll be carrying out a series of REPAMA Segment Analysis Studies to nail down how some of the vendors are taking their products to market. We’ve already looked at high-performance messaging, ESBs, BPM, Mainframe SOA and SOA adoption generally so now it’s the turn of cloud computing.
Lustratus has helped a number of cloud vendors with their go-to-market strategies and tactics over the last couple of years and one thing has been clear. It has been a… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, cloud computing, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning | 
application virtualization, cloud computing, competition, Danny Goodall, Lustratus, market taxonomy, marketing strategy, positioning, proposition segmentation, REPAMA, value proposition | 
Leave a commentDifferent differentiation for diffidents? (Corporate Shyness)
I hope you like the alliterative heading for the blog which was born from some work I’ve been doing recently for a client. I’m not sure that diffident is exactly the right word but there was no way that I was going to ditch it when it looks so beautiful set against all those “diff” words.
Anyway, I was struck recently by the reluctance of some people to fully embrace the concept and importance of aggressive differentiation. Whilst I’ve long understood that different types of people reach decisions about products (and lots of other things too) in different ways based on our bias towards one of the following psychological functions (Intuition, thinking, feeling and sensing), I’ve seldom before… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product marketing, usp, Vendor-Related Posts | competition, competitive, Competitive Marketing, competitor, Danny Goodall, differentiation, Lustratus, marketing strategy, oracle, product marketing, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing | 1 CommentUpdated High Performance Messaging Report
Just a quick note to say that the updated High Performance Messaging REPAMA Segment Analysis Study has been uploaded to the Lustratus site. It now contains the reverse-engineered product marketing strategy for TIBCO’s Messaging Appliance P-7500. Existing customers and Lustratus research subscription holders will already have been contacted with details of free upgrades.
Following on from the blog entry I made when the first version of the report was released I thought I’d show the updated value proposition below. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry TIBCO’s primary competitive focus is very unusual – it is TIBCO Rendezvous – one of its own products. The different approach to the market doesn’t stop there as you’ll… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, high performance middleware, marketing, positioning, product category, product management, product marketing, Vendor-Related Posts | 29West, competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, ibm, Lustratus, Messaging Appliance, middleware, product marketing, REPAMA, solace systems, Strategic Marketing, tibco | Leave a commentStandards-based marketing – an antidote “Be holier than thou” Part 6
So closing out this series of posts looking at differentiation in markets where technical standards have caused little technical difference between products, I’m going to look at standards bodies and technical education as a technique to create differentiation.
Preach the gospel – Educate
The first point to make is that in my experience products that have developed through the process of ratification of technical standards, first find an audience amongst the technical community. This means that there is an opportunity, albeit with a finite window of opportunity, to become the first vendor to provide education together with access to evaluation software for these early technical evaluators.
I’ve had first hand experience of this early stage marketing exercise. We… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product marketing | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, Lustratus, marketing, marketing strategy, messaging, positioning, product marketing, REPAMA, standards, standards bodies | Leave a commentStandards-based marketing – an antidote “Partner” Part 5
I’m carrying on this series of posts on how vendors can differentiate themselves in the market when technical standards have had the effect of removing significant functional difference between competitive products.
This time I’m going to look at partnering to create differentiation in your offer. Whilst the product proposition will remain materially similar to that of the standards-driven competition, a proposition carved from the synergies of the product and a strategic partner can be beneficial.
Partnering – Other complimentary vendors
As I suggested in this post, broadening the product portfolio is one way to create differentiation. Whilst this can be done through internal product development, it is also possible to broaden the product proposition through strategic partnerships.… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product marketing | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, Lustratus, marketing, messaging, Partner, Partnering, positioning, product marketing, REPAMA, standards, Strategic Marketing | 1 CommentStandards-based marketing – an antidote “Broaden the Debate” Part 4
Part 4 – Broaden the Debate
I’m continuing this series of blogs here by looking at the techniques that software vendors can use to create the “illusion” of differentiation in markets where technical standards have led to little material product difference.
So moving on from my last blog where I looked at the way an organisation can differentiate based on the way that they sell, this entry will look at techniques to move the focus away from the technology and onto some other element of the proposition where real differentiation between vendors exists.
I should perhaps first acknowledge that achieving this sort of holistic approach to taking a proposition to market is not the work of moments. It takes… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product marketing | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, differentiation, Lustratus, marketing strategy, product marketing, REPAMA, standards, Strategic Marketing | Leave a commentStandards-based marketing – an antidote “Sell Differently” Part 3
Part 3 – Sell Differently
I’m continuing this series of blogs here by looking at the techniques that software vendors can use to create the “illusion” of differentiation in markets where technical standards have led to little material product difference.
Perhaps the most obvious differentiator between organisations that have “broadly” similar technology, and an area that particularly hurts smaller or less well established software vendors, is the vendor’s approach to selling.
Which audience strata do you aim at and what do you say to them?
At its most crude this can be the difference between Vendor A talking to a technical audience about the features of Product A whilst Vendor B is talking to line of business managers within the… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, pain, positioning, product marketing, reason to buy | audience, benefit, competition, competitive, Competitive Marketing, Danny Goodall, differentiation, marketing strategy, REPAMA | Leave a commentStandards-based marketing – the homogeneous effect of software standards – Part 2
A History Lesson
Continuing on from this blog entry, I’ve decided to create another mini series of blogs, this time looking at the difficulty of differentiation in markets where software standards have created homogeneity amongst the offerings of the protagonists.
So first a little bit of a history lesson…
I surfed the wave of middleware resurgence in the early stages of the new millennium and had great success marketing various technologies. Initially, working with some of the best people in the industry, I introduced SonicMQ to the world while at Sonic Software (now Progress Software). This was a market proposition that was heavily based on standards. Well at least we… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, product marketing, SOA and Integration, Vendor-Related Posts | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, dave chappell, differentiation, JMS, progress software, REPAMA, soa, sonic software, standards-based, Strategic Marketing | 2 CommentsStandards-based marketing and identical twins – the nemesis of differentiation
At the risk of sounding like I’m repeating myself, once again I’ve just got off the phone from a friend and ex-colleague. This is a different friend and a different conversation to my last blog entry, and this time he was looking to do me a favour rather than picking my brains for free. Which was nice.
Anyway, after a while we got on to the subject of how sales of his organisation’s SOA, ESB and BPM offerings were going. A mixed bag was his response. “Where it’s good it’s very good and where it’s tough it’s very tough” was his view.
My mate is in sales looking after a geographic and industry-focused region for a… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product marketing | alternative, BPM, competition, competitive, Competitive Marketing, competitors, Danny Goodall, differentiation, esb, Lustratus, REPAMA, soa, standards, standards-based marketing | Leave a comment“Aim wider”, “focus everywhere” and other oxymorons
I’ve just had a conversation with a friend, an ex-colleague who was picking my brains (for free I might add!) about what he could do to make his sales year look better.
I asked him how his product was positioned and where his focus was on the market. He told me, and in doing so mentioned 3 industries, 3 market categories and 4 sub market segments, 4 or 5 target audiences and a similar number of problems they address in each of the 3 industries. I told him that this isn’t a focus. It’s a hedging of bets. It’s a baiting of many hooks in the vain hope of landing at least… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, ideal customer, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, pain, positioning, product marketing, prospects, reason to buy, usp | alternative, audience, benefit, competitive, Danny Goodall, focus, lead generation, Lustratus, marketing strategy, product marketing, prospecting, REPAMA, Target audience | Leave a comment
- On Informatica, Evangelism, Audience Strata and BIG-DATA
- The marketing strategies of open source versus closed source ESBs
- Part 2 – First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- WSO2 – Fits in between Talend and FuseSource…
- WSO2, or rather one of its competitors, has thrown its hat into the ring
- Wordcount.org – it counts words…
Recent Comments
May 12, 2011 (12:01) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? Hmm. I really do like the name Sarah but what about my ego? If I were to call the index 'GoodRead...
May 12, 2011 (11:36) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? I suggest calling it the GoodRead Index. Maybe it's over-reaching a bit, but you'll just have to ...
October 14, 2010 (4:19) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. I hope you could tell that I was being more than a little flippant here Jacques. Perhaps I should...
October 13, 2010 (1:56) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. Allow me to disagrre. At a customer, we have used Datapower for years to process XML (BTW, it is ...
June 7, 2010 (4:38) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Pete,Thanks for your comments, and those of your colleague. I think Danny has answered the 'mar...
June 4, 2010 (4:03) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hi,I'd very much like to develop a point made in the report where it is asserted that software ...
May 6, 2010 (12:35) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Thanks for your comment Blake. This is a marketing-focused blog that looks at different vendors' ...
May 5, 2010 (1:23) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hello There - It seems that this is a very provocative report, especially with respect to the sta...
April 14, 2010 (2:57) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
October 16, 2009 (5:56) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Very interesting point of discussion. I would be very interested to hear your results.