Read about this interesting acronym on one of the blogs I was reading the other day (Ian Howell). Below is an abstract of the article:
The enterprise software space is becoming soup, MISO Soup: Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle.
Large enterprise software vendors have a lot going for them. They have a big base, a large sophisticated salesforce, and big budgets to create a lot of noise in the market. Microsoft has a low-cost global channel with partners in every locality to explain and deliver their products.
It’s simply not possible to “out-base”, “out-salesforce” or “out-noise” MISO or even the lesser enterprise gorillas.
The big advantage of the open source model is the community and the low cost global internet distribution model. For this to work effectively your differentiation must be simple, intuitive and indisputable. You can’t rely on a sales-person having a long conversation to argue your differentiation or a long evaluation to prove your differentiation. It is critical to attack “the weakness in their strength” – classic “Ries and Trout” marketing warfare (First published 20 years ago but still as valid today.
Their strength is the salesforce and big marketing budgets. If you can get you message across simply without the need for a large expensive salesforce and large marketing budget then this becomes their weakness. The channel becomes too expensive to deliver the product. What you have is a classic open source best-of-both world’s strategy.
The best market for this is an already educated market that has been using the technology for a number of years.. The market doesn’t need to be taught what the problem and pain chain is. They know it. What they want is simple competitive based, differentiation based messaging.
The customer has to come to the conclusion the best solution is in the middle – The Best of Both Worlds.
