Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have in common that they once started with a brilliant idea, saw a gap in the market, developed an application, and then got into business. However, the entire software industry has been completely shaken up and turned upside down since the invention of the cloud.
"Different rules of the game now apply to stay in business. At a rapid pace, startups are developing new applications and Independent Software Vendors are enhancing current applications with available cloud services. But where do you, as an ISV, stand in this process? You as an ISV probably recognize yourself in one of these three scenarios:"
(Job Verhagen, CEO of Intercept)
For years, you worked according to a certain business logic where the software was sold once, installed and a support contract was signed. However, customer demand is increasingly becoming cloud. This creates challenges because the application has to be rewritten, but also because the revenue model becomes different. After all, cloud customers pay according to usage and then preferably also per user.
The choice of cloud is already made, your applications are hosted in a private cloud environment. You purchase servers and accept that you will have excess capacity when scaling down. Or you place your application with a service provider who then hosts it in a private data center. If availability and performance of your application is a requirement, you've probably looked at a public cloud platform such as Amazon or Azure. Because technology advances so quickly, you don't always know how to determine which available resources will also positively change your business in addition to day-to-day operations. In addition, you might want to scale up overseas but run into the limitations of the current cloud provider.
You may be among the ever-growing group of ISVs who have chosen the public cloud. It is good to ask yourself whether you want to get all the expertise of Azure in-house and continue to host your own software. You will have to deal with new developments in Machine Learning, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence while your company's core expertise is in software development and reselling your application. Do you want to appropriate all this knowledge for yourself and is this time investment not at the expense of the further development of your organization?
No matter where you stand, it seems that doing everything yourself is virtually impossible. In addition, customers have become more demanding in terms of continuous delivery and expect regular improvements through new features of the application. At the same time, ISVs are also expected to see all kinds of new business opportunities for the end customer. So how can you as a developer think along in the rapidly changing IT landscape? That's where we like to help, whether it's scenario 1,2 or 3.
Depending on your situation and type of customers, you can be anywhere, as long as your business remains relevant to the target group. Intercept can give you just that little push to take a fresh look at your business transformation. Read more about the Cloudify roadmap we developed specifically for ISVs or contact us to find out if we can take your application to the next level together.