Perhaps the greatest change is how relatively easy it is today to launch an effective global marketing campaign on a limited budget.  If you’re selling software that provides true value at a reasonable price, you don’t need a Microsoft-sized budget to reach your potential customers.

So here are a few suggestions for an inexpensive marketing campaign:

Start a Blog

Start a WordPress blog focused on the problem you are solving, your target audience and their market.  WordPress comes SEO-ready out of the box and is a great traffic magnet.  It’s even more valuable if your blog can provide advice and solve problems that naturally draw an audience.  Of course you’ll want to write about and advertise your software on your blog.

Write a Press Release

Write a press release and take advantage of free press release submission services such as PRlog.  Review samples on the Web and be sure to follow the guidelines for a good press release.  You need to look and sound professional.

Promote Your Software on Blogs and Forums

Visit blogs and forums in your target market, leave relevant and valuable comments, and provide a link back to your blog and/or software website.  You need to walk a fine line between being a spammer and helpful contributor.  The best way is to answer questions and give advice but don’t directly plug your product.

Provide a Free Sample

Provide a free version of your service that actually delivers some value.  And of course, provide a paid version with additional features.  People love free stuff and it helps draw a crowd.

Advertise with Google AdWords

Buy some Google AdWords search ads.  This can get real expensive real quick, so you need to choose your keywords well: the more precise your keywords, the better your click-thru rate and lower the cost.  Be sure to set daily limits.  If done well, you should be able to generate a half-dozen or more good clicks for a couple dollars per day.  You can also get $50 and $75 free AdWords coupons from companies such as VistaPrint if you order business cards, for example.

Related posts:

1. Software Markets Compared
2. Blogging Tips for Developers
3. Can you Digg it? 7 Tips for Bloggers Working with Social News Sites

To be a “most important” innovation, an innovation has to be an idea that is very widely used and is critically important where it applies. – David A. Wheeler

It’s not easy choosing the best innovators in an industry defined by innovation. The nature of software is such that the technologies, systems and products completely refresh every decade or so. The triumphant invention of just 10 years ago is now considered “legacy” or even obsolete. So making a lasting impression in the software business is a tough task indeed.

Following is my list of the top 10 software innovators of all time. Inclusion on this list doesn’t mean the person came up with every idea or wrote every byte of code. Rather, these are the people whose leadership, ideas, designs and products propelled the software industry forward by leaps and bounds. Their innovations affect us greatly even today.

10. Dan Bricklin – VisiCalc

Dan Bricklin was co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software available for personal computers. He received the Grace Hopper Award in 1981 for VisiCalc. He also founded Trellix, a website software company now owned by Web.com, and is founder and president of Software Garden.

VisiCalc was the first serious, mainstream business program for the IBM personal computer. It signaled the coming shift from large mainframes to small PCs, proving these personal computers could indeed be used for business. Many of the first IBM PCs were purchased just to run VisiCalc. Eventually Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel squashed VisiCalc, and unfortunately Bricklin never profited greatly from his invention.

9. Larry Ellison – Oracle

Larry Ellison founded Oracle in 1977 with $2000 of his own money. Oracle published the first commercially-available relational database and essentially launched the database market. Today, Oracle is the world’s leading supplier of database software and the second largest independent software company with nearly $10 billion in annual revenue. Oracle recently acquired PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and Hyperion.

Ellison is living proof that business sense is an innate gift, not something to be gleaned from academic textbooks. A college dropout, Ellison is now a multi-billionaire renowned for his business sense, drive and ambition.

8. Shawn Fanning – Napster

In 1998, Shawn Fanning created Napster, the first massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing system. Fanning appeared on the cover of Wired magazine and quickly rose to fame. Napster peaked in 2001 with 26 million users worldwide. However, Napster also became the target of several music industry lawsuits, which ultimately killed the service. Since 2002, Roxio has owned the Napster name, which it used to rebrand its PressPlay music service.

Napster forever changed the entertainment business. By providing an enormous selection of free music to download, it enabled people to obtain just the music hits, effectively demoting the album. Napster also made it easy for music enthusiasts to download songs that were otherwise difficult to obtain, such as older music, unreleased recordings, and concert bootlegs. The music industry is still struggling to recover from the impact of Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing.

7. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen – YouTube

Chad Hurley and Steve Chen founded YouTube, a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion in Google stock. In January 2008, nearly 79 million users watched over 3 billion videos on YouTube. Currently YouTube hosts about 83.4 million unique videos and 3.75 million user channels. YouTube consumes more Internet bandwidth today than was used by the entire Internet in 2000.

YouTube has become a global hub of self-expression. It was one of the main factors for Time magazine’s declaration of “you” as the “Person of the Year” in 2006. It allows you to “wrest power from the few and help one another for nothing.” This will “not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.” You are no longer just receiving the news produced by media, but you are creating your own news and becoming the hero in your own movies.

6. Linus Torvalds – Linux

Linus Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer who initiated development of the Linux kernel. At the time, the GNU Project had created many of the components necessary for a free software operating system but lacked a solid kernel. The result is Linux, the world’s most popular operating system that’s not Windows.

Torvalds wrote about 2% of the Linux kernel himself, which is significant, given there are thousands of contributors to the open source operating system. Today Torvalds is the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel. Torvalds owns the “Linux” trademark and manages the non-profit organization Linux International.

5. Marc Andreessen – Netscape

Marc Andreessen was the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications. AOL acquired Netscape in 1999 for $4.2 billion and made Andreessen its Chief Technology Officer. Andreessen was also the co-founder and chairman of software company Opsware (originally Loudcloud) when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. Currently he is co-founder of Ning, a company that provides a platform for social-networking websites.

Andreessen was 23 years old when he built the browser that launched the World Wide Web. The Netscape $2 billion IPO in 1995 propelled Andreessen into the spotlight and on the cover of Time magazine. Andreessen became the “poster-boy wunderkind of the Internet bubble generation: young, twenty-something, high-tech, ambitious, and worth millions (or billions) of dollars practically overnight.” (wiki)

4. Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. students at Stanford, invented Google in 1996 as a research project. The Google website launched in 1997, and by the end of 1998 it had indexed about 60 million web pages. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords and launched the pay-per-click model, until then a rarity in advertising. Google launched its IPO in 2004, raising $1.67 billion and giving it a market capitalization of $23 billion, making Page and Brin instant billionaires.

Today Google has a market cap of $180 billion and owns 70% of web searches. Google performs nearly 6 billion web searches each month. Google has also become a verb in popular lexicon. If there’s anything you need to know, you “Google it.”

3. Steve Jobs – Apple, Pixar

Steve Jobs is the CEO, chairman and co-founder of Apple Inc., and is the founder and former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. In fiscal 2007, Apple had worldwide sales of $24 billion. Apple’s iPod and iTunes dominate the portable and online music markets with nearly 80% market share. The Apple Macintosh owns 8% of the personal computer market and provides an effective counter-weight to the dominance of Microsoft Windows. Pixar led the surge of software-animated feature films, including Toy Story and Finding Nemo, resulting in eight academy awards. The Walt Disney Company purchased Pixar from Jobs in 2006 for $7.4 billion.

Jobs “contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.” (wiki)

2. Tim Berners-Lee – World Wide Web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is an English developer who invented the World Wide Web in March 1989. Berners-Lee published the first website on August 6, 1991. The site provided an explanation about what the World Wide Web was, how to use a web browser, and how to set up a web server. Berners-Lee made his idea freely available, with no patent or royalties due. In 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The W3C declared their standards must be based on royalty-free technology so they can be easily adopted by anyone.

Berners-Lee once said: “I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and — ta-da! — the World Wide Web.” The World Wide Web is one of the most important communication inventions in history, providing a standard platform for global communications and commerce. Today there are over 100 million websites and 45 billion web pages.

1. Bill Gates – Microsoft

Bill Gates is co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company with 79,000 employees in 102 countries and $51 billion in annual sales. More than 90% of personal computers use the Microsoft Windows operating system, and nearly 50% of web servers run Microsoft software. Microsoft also dabbles in cable TV, Internet portals, computer hardware, and gaming with the XBox. Microsoft is currently in process to acquire Yahoo.

Gates, the world’s third richest man, is leaving Microsoft in July to become a full-time philanthropist. His Gates Foundation is the largest in the world with an endowment of $38 billion.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but kudos to the man whose company delivered a world-dominant computing platform, offering software entrepreneurs a market 600 million strong and expected to hit a billion by 2010. When there is that much attention and opportunity focused in one place, we will continue to see incredible advances in software and hardware that fuel Moore’s Law and drive our information society.

So who would appear on your list of Top 10 Software Innovators? Please comment below.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Advances in Software Development
2. Should All Software Be Free?
3. Software Markets Compared

As stated in USA Today, the number of technology startups in New Mexico, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. has risen between 70% to 600% since 1997.  VC investments in these regions have surged as universities and corporations launch research startups in the energy, health care, media and defense industries.  Although none of these up-and-coming regions make the top-five list for VC investments in 2007, that could be only a matter of time.

The fastest growth was in New Mexico, which is super-hot for VC investments because of its high concentration of research labs including Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Pittsburgh, home of the steel industry in the last century, is now home to many world-class universities such as Carnegie Mellon that specialize in biotech, medical and pharmaceutical research.  And of course, right next door to Seattle is Microsoft, which attracts a large amount of high-tech talent and hence investment money to that region.

Venture capital was strong in 2007, with VCs investing $29.4 billion in 3,813 deals, the highest yearly investment total since 2001.  The 2007 total represents a 10.8% increase in dollars and 5% increase in deal volume over 2006.  But software investments have remained relatively flat for the past five years, with $5.3 billion invested in 905 deals in 2007.  Despite the lack of growth, software remained the largest VC investment category for the year both in terms of deals and dollars, edging out biotech for the top spot.

Related posts:

1. Venture Capital Funding Flat
2. Recession Slams Silicon Valley
3. Funding a Software Startup

There are four main sources of capital to fund a startup software company: yourself, friends & family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.  During my 25 years of software entrepreneurship, I have used each of these sources to fund my six software companies, to varying degrees of success.  But none of these options are bad, and I would consider any of these funding sources again, depending on the situation.  One lesson is clear: the more you take from others, the more you have to give in return.

Following are the pros and cons of the main sources of software company funding:
 

You

In a perfect world, you would fund your software startup completely from your own savings.  But building a company often requires you to leave your day job, cutting off your income and making it even more challenging to fund your company.  If you lack the cash, alternatives include a working spouse, credit cards (but watch those high interest rates), bank loans and small business loans.  Of course, the truly best source of funding is customer revenue.

Pros:

• You retain complete ownership and control.
• All profits go to you.
• It’s easier to keep spending under control when it’s your own money.
• Interest payments are deductible business expenses.
• You can tweak and validate your business model before exposing others to risk.

Cons:

• The entire financial risk falls on your shoulders.
• You may not have enough capital to adequately fund your company.
• You are not receiving outside expertise, advice and perspective.

Friends & Family

If you lack the cash to fund your company, friends and family may be your next best bet.

Pros:

• There is much less due diligence because the investors already know you.
• Return-on-investment demands are lower.
• You can usually trust friends and family.
• Friends and family are less likely to meddle in the operation of your business.

Cons:

• Mixing business and pleasure can range from tricky to disastrous.
• Friends and family typically lack the expertise and contacts to help your business.
• They may not offer enough capital to adequately fund your company.
• The regulatory burden is much higher if your investors are not accredited, which the SEC defines as having at least a million dollars in liquid assets or annual income of $200,000.

Angel Investors

Angel investors are rich individuals (often successful entrepreneurs) who invest their own money in private businesses.  Angel investments typically range from $25,000 to $250,000.

Pros:

• Angel investors who themselves are tech entrepreneurs will understand your situation and can provide expertise and business contacts.
• Angels may invest in early-stage companies with inexperienced founders and few customers.
• Angels are less likely to meddle in the day-to-day operation of your business.

Cons:

• You will lose some ownership and control of your company.
• Angels may not be able to provide additional funds as your company expands, forcing you to find other angel investors or venture capitalists.
• Angels may lack experience in your business domain.
• Angel investors may be dishonest or unethical.
• Angel investment contracts can be quite complicated and require legal help to decipher.
• Angels may require you to invest a significant amount of your own cash to prove your commitment.

Venture Capitalists

Venture capitalists (VCs) are companies that invest other people’s money in both new and established businesses.  VC firms are organized as funds, much like mutual or hedge funds.  VC investments average several million dollars, so they are more difficult to obtain and come with many strings attached.

Pros:

• VCs can provide millions of dollars to jumpstart your business.
• VCs also provide expertise, contacts and customers.
• Established VCs have a reputation to protect and are usually ethical and trustworthy.
• VCs provide instant credibility.  Customers–especially large corporations–are more likely to buy software from VC-backed companies.

Cons:

• You will likely lose majority ownership and control of your company.
• You could quite possibly lose your job.  Founder CEOs are often replaced in the first year after receiving venture capital.
• VCs are focused on receiving a ten-times return on their investment, and hence will make decisions based on what’s best for their return, not necessarily what’s best for the company, its founders or employees.
• It will take 6-18 months of dedicated effort to secure venture capital.
• VCs typically will not invest in inexperienced entrepreneurs and companies without established customers and revenue.
• VC deals generally come with adverse terms, such as the VC gets its investment back before any other investors.  So if your company is sold at a low price, you get nothing.
• Founders may be required to accept “vesting” where you surrender your stock and earn it back over the next few years.
• A large infusion of venture capital often shifts the company’s focus away from selling software instead to building staff and spending money.

Links

• How to Fund a Startup
• The Hacker’s Guide to Investors
• Beyond Venture Capital: 5 Funding Options for Startups
• Two Years of Real Numbers for a Startup
• 10 Reasons to Shy Away from Venture Capital

Related posts:

1. Venture Capital Funding Flat
2. Venture Capital Spreads Beyond Silicon Valley
3. Software Markets Compared

Some Good News

The good news is there was improvement in some countries with notoriously bad piracy rates, most notably China, where software piracy dropped 10% in three years to 82%, and in Russia, where piracy fell 7% in three years to 80%.  Of the 102 countries studied, piracy rates dropped moderately in 62 countries, but increased in 13 countries.  The reduction was primarily the result of government efforts to reduce piracy both within its own organizations as well in the general populace, formal arrangements with software vendors to use legitimate software, and increasing education and enforcement efforts.

“We are making progress, however, we still have a lot of work to do to reduce unacceptable levels of piracy,” said BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman.  ”These significant losses translate into negative impacts on IT industry employment, revenues, and financial resources available for future innovation and the development of new technologies.”

Big Losses

But even lower piracy rates can add up to huge losses, the study showed. For example, while the U.S. had the lowest piracy rate (21%) of all countries studied, it also had the highest total loss at $7.3 billion.  China had the second highest loss at $5.4 billion, followed by France at $2.7 billion.

IDC predicts $350 billion of PC software will be sold over the next four years. If current software piracy trends continue, then $180 billion worth of PC software will also be stolen.

Excuses, Excuses

Why do normally law-abiding citizens, who wouldn’t even think about shoplifting a CD from a record store, have no trouble stealing thousands of dollars of software?  Typical excuses for software piracy include:

• All software should be free.
• Software is intangible.
• Software is too expensive.
• Software is too buggy to deserve payment.
• The software license agreement is too confusing.
• Software piracy is not a problem.
• Software piracy is a victimless crime.
• Software piracy is illegal??
• Bill Gates and Microsoft are rich enough.
• I’m just one person versus a large multinational corporation.
• I don’t have the money.
• I plan to use the software only a few times.
• I wouldn’t buy it anyway.
• Because I can.

Can you imagine walking into a Lexus dealer, driving off with a new $60,000 LS without paying, then telling the cops, “I didn’t have the money,” or “It was too expensive to buy.”  Of course not, and yet people do it with software everyday.

Crime Doesn’t Pay

Pirated software may be free, but there are significant financial and legal penalties for software piracy.  Illegally using or distributing software can result in felony charges with prison terms up to five years and fines up to US$250,000.  In civil litigation, software pirates may be liable for the higher of: lost profits for the software vendor, ill-gotten gains by the software pirate, or statutory damages of up to US$150,000 per product infringed plus attorney fees.

The cost of using pirated software isn’t just financial.  Software pirates tend to lose out on many benefits enjoyed by customers who legally pay for the software they use:

• No customer support, upgrades and bug fixes
• No warranty protection
• Pirated software can contain viruses or spyware
• Pirated software may be outdated or beta versions
• Pirated software may not be fully “cracked” and can still contain some anti-piracy measures that may cripple the software or damage your data

Fight Software Piracy

The use of pirated software also drives up the costs for legitimate users.  Somebody is going to pay the price, so if it’s not the pirates, then it will be you.  This gives legitimate users all the more reason to help fight software piracy by reporting companies that are not “playing by the rules.”

I’ve heard some software entrepreneurs say that pirates wouldn’t buy their software anyway, therefore the true cost of piracy is negligible.  But other vendors have reported sales drops of 30-50% literally overnight when a pirated version of their software appears online.

In a future article I will discuss some of the more popular counter-measures used by software entrepreneurs to help reduce losses from software piracy.

Links

• REPORT SOFTWARE PIRACY
• Business Software Alliance
• Microsoft Software Piracy Protection
• Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)

Related posts:

1. Software Piracy Mixed Bag
2. Software Markets Compared
3. Funding a Software Startup

The Microsoft “Empower for ISVs” program offers software, support, and additional resources designed to help ISVs reduce development costs, test their software on multiple Windows platforms, and improve time-to-market.  Empower is a one-year membership for $375, with an opportunity to renew for a second year, and it’s available only once per company.

I’ve heard some developers describe Empower as a “legal way to steal Microsoft software.”  We are in the second year of the Empower program at Mini-Tools, and I can vouch this program is indeed a steal for new ISVs.  We have saved over $3,000 in software and support costs with Empower.  I’ve also heard rumors that Microsoft may extend Empower to a third year, and we sincerely hope this is true.

Empower Benefits

Empower provides licenses for most Microsoft software and includes enhanced support:

• Up to five (5) internal-use software licenses:
• Windows Vista, or Windows XP Professional
• 2007 Microsoft Office system or Microsoft Office 2003
• One (1) software license and up to five (5) Client Access Licenses (CALs) for:
• Windows Server 2003 (Standard or Enterprise Edition)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (Standard or Enterprise Edition)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Standard or Enterprise Edition)
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or 2003
• Development and Testing Licenses:
• One (1) MSDN Premium Subscription Media Kit and five (5) user licenses (does not include phone-based incident support)
• Full range of Microsoft servers integrated server-software, all Microsoft operating systems, Microsoft productivity products (Microsoft Office Developer, Microsoft Project, FrontPage, Visio, and MapPoint), and access to SDKs, DDKs, and the MSDN Library
• Five (5) licenses for Visual Studio 2005 Professional, for up to five (5) users, concurrent with development and testing licenses provided with the MSDN Premium Subscription
• Priority access to new product releases, updates, and betas through the MSDN Downloads site
• MSDN online managed support newsgroups (English only)
• Forums for your software, hardware, and related technology questions supported by Microsoft support professionals
• ISV Advisory Service (10 Hours)
• This new phone-based consultation service helps you develop products using Microsoft technologies. Select from a broad range of services, including ad hoc development advice and best-practice recommendations.

Empower Requirements

Becoming an Empower member is fairly easy and painless:

• Pay the annual membership fee of US$375. (Note: Fee varies by country.)
• Be a Registered Member of the Microsoft Partner Program.
• Submit the URL of your company’s official website at the time of enrollment, using the online enrollment tool. You must maintain the contact information on the official corporate website during your membership.
• Commit to developing one (1) packaged and resalable software product that supports at least one of the following Microsoft technologies:
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft Mobility platform (Microsoft Windows Mobile software for Pocket PCs, Microsoft Windows Mobile software for mobile devices)
• Microsoft Dynamics (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions)
• Execute the Initiative Agreement located in the online enrollment tool.
• Provide profile information on planned software product development.

Empower Re-Enrollment

After the first year of your Empower membership expires, no doubt you will want to sign up for a second year to continue the great benefits and savings.  To receive a second year of Empower:

• Continue to meet all the requirements of the first-year membership, listed above.
• Within 18 months of initial membership activation (within 6 months of re-enrollment), publicly announce the new packaged software product on your official website.
• Within 24 months of initial membership activation (within 12 months of re-enrollment), release the new packaged software product.
• Pay the standard annual membership fee of US$375. (Note: Fee varies by country.)
• Membership is limited to two years, so you may re-enroll only once.

Enroll in Empower for ISVs.  Or check out the Empower FAQ.

Related posts:

1. Free Microsoft Software from WebsiteSpark
2. Blogs from Microsoft C# Development Team
3. Software Markets Compared

The Amiga computer was fast for its time, but maddeningly slow in hindsight: 5-10 minutes to compile a typical development project.  Hard drives were still external, bulky and expensive at $500 for 30MB.  The Amiga system APIs were plentiful, massive and complex, like the Win32 APIs that followed.  I wrote software in C, using a programmable text editor and the “Make” tool to build projects.

A lot has changed in two decades.  As with most things in this business, software development tools and systems are now better, faster, and sometimes cheaper.  But what are the most important changes?

In the spirit of David Letterman, following are my “Top 10 Advances in Software Development.”  These are the things–from my perspective, in increasing order of importance–that have most improved software development and entrepreneurship over the past 20 years.  I encourage you to reply with your own Top 10 list.

10. Modeling Tools

Of all the items on this list, modeling tools still have the farthest to go before they become the essential and dominant part of the software development process that they should be.  There are some promising candidates, but most modeling tools are still too “heavy,” expensive, and disconnected from the code and overall development process.  And while the tools are getting better at modeling classes and use-cases, when it comes to writing logic and the “guts” to most functions, code is still the way to go.

9. Automated Build Tools

The C “Make” tool in 1985 was quite powerful for its day, doing much of what the automated build tools can do today.  However, today’s tools are graphical, making it far easier to create complex and logic-driven build routines.  Modern tools are also better at handling errors, and can restart the build process in the middle, automatically determine project dependencies, interface with source control systems, and manage the work of a virtual team across the Web.

8. IDEs

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) combine all of your programming tools together in one application, with a consistent user interface, macro language and documentation system.  IDEs make good on the promise of windowed GUIs, enabling developers to create a comprehensive “dashboard” for the software development process.

7. XML

Sometimes the greatest solutions are the most simple.  XML represents data in a human-readable and generally-universal plain text format.  Years ago this wasn’t possible with limited storage space and computing power.  But now most modern software uses XML to store and exchange data.  As a result, we are seeing an increase in mashups, where software is combined in new ways to provide more powerful solutions.

6. Faster Processors

When I first started programming professionally, building an average-size development project would take 5-10 minutes.  I’d spend an hour or three coding, then start the build and go grab a Coke.  Now I can make a change, build the project in seconds, and almost instantly see the results and debug any problems.  Not only does this save time by not having to wait around for the project to build, but the rapid-feedback cycle results in faster solutions while debugging.

5. Microsoft Windows

Say what you will about Microsoft, but kudos to M$ for delivering a world-dominant computing platform, offering software entrepreneurs such as myself a market pool 600 million strong and expected to hit a billion by 2010.  When you have that much attention and opportunity focused in one place, you are going to see the incredible advances that continue to fuel Moore’s Law and drive our information society.

4. Code Outlining

Code outlining is using XML tags to organize source code into collapsible sections and hierarchies.  Arguably the most controversial item on this list, this is also where you’ll find the most personal bias.  With my cubital tunnel, every mouse click and key press can be a literal pain.  Code outlining can collapse a 50-page code file into a single screen and save hundreds of clicks and endless scrolling.

3. Code Sharing and Google

In the old days, if I ran into a programming roadblock, I had to rely on the vendor’s limited documentation or hope that one of my programming buddies had encountered a similar problem.  It wasn’t uncommon to search for a solution over weeks and even months.  Now with Google, other search engines and code-sharing sites, millions of “buddies” are accessible in seconds.  If someone somewhere has encountered a similar problem, chances are they’ve shared their solution on the Web, and Google will find it.

2. Managed Code

Write the code and it just works.  That’s what I love about managed programming languages and C# in particular.  Sure, my code may have logic errors that I need to debug.  But I am no longer spending hours needlessly chasing pointer-to-pointer bugs and memory leaks found in C++, for example.  With managed code, the focus is on business processes and logic, not programming language behavior and side-effects.

1. World Wide Web

It’s interesting that the greatest advance in software development isn’t development-specific.  The Web has transformed nearly every aspect of a software development company, greatly simplifying many tasks and making it possible for small companies to thrive in the global marketplace.  For just a few dollars a month, a software entrepreneur can market, sell and support his products and services from anywhere to anywhere the Web will go.  This improves productivity, spurs innovation, and raises the overall global economy.

Related posts:

1. Software Markets Compared
2. Microsoft Empowers Small ISVs
3. Small Basic: Programming Should be Fun

Of course, each target market has its own advantages and disadvantages, which I summarize below.  Note this list is from the perspective of a small software company (2-50 employees) with limited funds.  Microsoft and Google may hold a different view.

Large Enterprises

Pros:

1. A single contract can result in tens or hundreds of thousands dollars in revenue.
2. A well-known enterprise customer can serve as a highly-effective reference to other potential customers.
3. Piracy is limited because there is often a server component, and also due to corporate liability in using pirated software.
4. End-user support is less because enterprise customers typically provide first level support to their own employees.  When support is required, it’s typically second-level support to trained corporate IT staff.

Cons:

1. Requires lots of money, time and patience.
2. Requires a professional sales force.
3. Deals usually take months to close, and it’s common to work for months on an enterprise deal, only to see it lost to a competitor at the last moment.
4. The strongest competitor is often the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) mentality common in large enterprises.
5. Navigating an enterprise’s internal political minefield is often required to seal the deal and can be quite tricky.
6. Enterprises often require custom work, which can result in additional services revenue, but can also easily swamp or derail a small software company.
7. Large enterprises often will not purchase from a small, relatively unknown company unless the solution offered is truly unique in the market, which is rare.

General Consumers

Pros:

1. The market pool is enormous.
2. The customer relationship can be handled exclusively over the Web, resulting in huge savings and economies-of-scale.
3. Put up a web site and shopping cart, and you are in business.
4. Consumer software is typically less complex and easier to build than enterprise or development software.

Cons:

1. There is a glut of competition, especially from free and open source software.
2. Consumers don’t like to pay for software.
3. Consumers can be difficult to target and reach.
4. As much as 50% of potential sales will be lost to piracy.

Software Developers

Pros:

1. Software developers are typically much smarter than the average computer user, hence the support load is greatly reduced.
2. Software developers are much easier to target and reach than general consumers.
3. Piracy is limited, since software developers tend to have corporate employers.
4. Developers will often pay much higher prices for software tools than the average consumer.

Cons:

1. The market is generally small, especially when selling components of limited scope, or selling products specific to a single operating system or programming language.
2. When support is required, the problems tend to be quite complex, requiring highly technical and well-trained support staff.
3. The strongest competitor is DIY (Do-It-Yourself) since many programmers prefer to roll their own solutions.
4. The web is full of free and open-source code and development tools.
5. Developers often have highly unique needs and can be very demanding.

Related posts:

1. Funding a Software Startup
2. Software Piracy Mixed Bag
3. One-Third of PC Software is Pirated

I never thought I would write a blog.  Adding to the 175,000 new blogs on the Web each day didn’t seem like a worthwhile endeavor.  What could I possibly say that hasn’t already been said?  But then I realized that at least once a day I learn a new tip or trick that could possibly benefit someone else.  Many times I’ve found the answer to a tough problem from some generous soul on the Web, so I wish to repay the favor.  Plus I suppose I have a story to tell that software developers and entrepreneurs may find educational, if not entertaining.

My Mission

In my youth I was much more interested–some would say obsessed–with self-analysis and capturing my life in letters, logs and diaries.  I have stacks of papers filled with my experiences and grand ideas, all sitting in a box and doing no good, or up in a puff at our annual bonfire.  

Humans are good at generating thoughts and ideas.  Computers are getting better at capturing, managing and sharing the explosion of information we humans generate.  But there’s still a long way to go to make the whole experience easy and painless for the average PC user or someone who is disabled.

Two decades ago I embarked on a mission to develop software to better manage that information overload.  I’ve taken a number of good stabs at the problem, but have not yet succeeded with a great solution.  Six software companies and half my life later, my mission continues.

Along the way, an odd thing happened.  Now that I’ve aged, perhaps even matured somewhat, I am less interested in documenting my life and more content to simply live life and enjoy the ride.  But I still encounter a plethora of information on a daily basis: in my businesses, browsing the web, paying bills, writing letters, viewing family photos.  If anything, the computer has become even more central to my life, as my life becomes increasingly digital.

In the past few years my journey has been made more challenging by cubital tunnel, a painful condition that anyone can experience.  Simply bump your funny bone, and you will know how I feel much of the day.  Cubital tunnel–like it’s evil brother carpal tunnel–is not a good thing for a software developer to have.

DevTopics.com

This blog is a partial record of my career-long mission to tame information overload, combined with a frank discussion of cubital tunnel and the great challenges that face people with disabilities when they try to use a PC, along with a healthy dose of tips, tricks and code for my developer colleagues.  Let’s continue to pay it forward.

Related posts:

1. My Experience with Ulnar Decompression Surgery for Cubital Tunnel Syndrome
2. Cubital-Tunnel.com Launched!
3. Programmer’s Nightmare: Cubital Tunnel Syndrome