Michael Fauscette

HP: Trail Blazing in SMB

Welcome Mira Perry with this guest post. Mira is a Sr Analyst in IDC's Software Sales Channels Program in my Software Business Solutions Group. Catch up with her on Twitter @miravperry.

  HP's new SMB Elite designation in PartnerONE is a novel and exciting effort to approach the SMB market. The announcement comes less than two months after HP named Meaghan Kelly as VP of SMB Channel Sales and Strategy. According to an HP spokesperson, the SMB Elite designation will be available May 1 "for partners who are really committed to the space, with demonstrated competency and revenue mix focused on SMB." HP's new designation gives partners many reasons to applaud. But will interested partners quickly move to embrace the new designation or fall short of meeting revenue and competency requirements?

Those who follow SMB channel initiatives will be tempted to compare HP's SMB Elite with Microsoft's Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) program but the two programs differ remarkably from member benefits to entrance requirements and target audience. Time will tell whether one formula is more effective than the other.

Partners achieving the HP SMB Elite designation will enjoy the "holy trinity" of partner benefits including SMB customer leads, an account manager, and the marketable SMB Elite designation. Recent surveys place leads near the top of a partner's wish list, trumped only by an account manager/ inside salesperson who serves as the partner's single point of contact. In my years at Microsoft running their SBSC program, leads and a single point of contact continue to top the wish lists of SBSC members, many of whom also report joining SBSC for the implied credibility associated with the logo. Similar to Microsoft, secondary benefits for HP SMB Elite members include co-marketing funds, a partner locator, and SMB-relevant promotions. HP has "nailed" the benefits aspect of the designation which should generate a steady stream of partners interested in becoming SMB Elite.

I wonder whether all interested partners will qualify. Can the small reseller whose business is built on the SMB customer meet the threshold revenue requirements? Will this initiative single out only large partners, or worse, large partners paying lip service to the SMB market? An HP spokesperson assured me that "SMB is attainable by all partners, they just have to meet the requirements." In other words, HP is not playing a game of exclusion, but they do want validation of a partner's capability to service SMBs. It's a subtle difference.

HP does not make specific details about the entrance requirements available to the public, but they were willing to disclose that prospective SMB Elite designees must pass tests to attain certification requirements thereby proving competency in the space, and meet a revenue threshold. Because Elite is the top level of PartnerONE, it is safe to assume that these are not the entry-level type requirements of Microsoft's SBSC program.

To fully appreciate HP's initiative, it is essential to set aside pre-conceptions based on Microsoft's SBSC model which was developed as a 'small businesses working with other small businesses' stepping stone for Microsoft's non-managed partners to become certified. HP's strategy is different. For HP, "size of the partner doesn’t matter, what matters is their customer focus." Yet HP appears to be targeting partners who have established themselves as the best of the best, the Elite tier, to service their small business customers. In most circumstances, this will be a vastly different partner group than Microsoft's target. Of course the first year of Microsoft's program was dominated by Gold-level partners who continue to share SBSC membership with partners at the Registered and Certified levels. Sometimes partners belie even the best strategies.

Faced with hurdles, however, smaller partners may choose to ignore incentives to join HP's new SMB designation despite tempting benefits if they expect that they can maintain their current customers. While revenue targets can pose an obvious challenge for some smaller resellers, exams, surprisingly, can be similarly problematic. I have encountered small partners whose unwillingness to sit for an exam can not be mitigated with any amount of free exam prep, free exam vouchers, or even $200 gift cards. It is extremely difficult to pull a person who bills on an hourly basis away from work to prep for and take an exam.

At the end of the day though, it's about increasing customer satisfaction by helping customers find a partner who understands and will service their unique business needs. Creating market value and credibility for the designation necessitates that partners demonstrate competence in SMB-related technologies. The exam requirement is essential for the protection of the customer, despite anticipated partner protests.

Where HP has more flexibility is in the revenue requirements. Ideally, HP will unveil revenue requirements attainable by an optimal mix of partners: from the large resellers with countless capabilities to the fellow small or mid-size business with a local presence, an understanding of the SMB experience, and a willingness to service, even prioritize, smaller deals. By betting on the growth potential of small partners, HP will still be able to recognize the SMB investments of larger partner organizations while offering customers a range of SMB experts to meet their needs.

Despite the anticipated challenges associated with the launch of any new initiative, the SMB Elite designation in PartnerONE is a commendable initiative from HP. Partners will applaud the benefits associated with SMB Elite and customers will appreciate the vetting and validation offered by the designation. And, if the initiative is attainable by the variety of small and large partners servicing the SMB market, the company can anticipate even more accolades for their investment in SMB.

Citrix and IBM, an open and closed case

Welcome Darren Bibby with this guest post. Darren is IDC's Program Director for Software Partner, Channels and Alliances in my Software Business Solutions Group. Catch up with him on Twitter @darrenbibby.

It's been an interesting two weeks in the realm of partner strategy changes. We've seen both sides of the 'open versus controlled distribution' coin. On February 18, IBM announced that it was closing product distribution only to partners that became certified in each of its 14 product groups, save for some products that will remain in open distribution. This past week, Citrix announced that it was opening up product distribution to more partners. Where Citrix was before its announcement is where IBM will be after their controlled distribution initiative takes effect in October 2009.

At any other time, Citrix's announcement may have been simply lauded for its attempt to simplify a program in a time of increasingly complex partner programs. But with the IBM announcement still fresh, the desire to compare initiatives is just too strong to ignore.

Citrix used to mandate that a partner couldn't resell a product if it wasn't certified to sell it. Now, except for the XenApp line, any partner can sell any product, even if the partner is still working on certifications. As of October 1, 2009, for many of IBM's key products, a partner will now have to be certified to be able to resell a product.

Citrix seems to be making their decision for several reasons. Program simplification is obviously one key objective. The previous model proved to be complex at times and added friction to getting business done. In addition, Citrix has been acquiring companies and technologies, and its product portfolio has been morphing at a rapid pace. Policing its controlled distribution was becoming more and more difficult.

Allowing more partners, new and established, to sell more products is certainly a worthwhile outcome to Citrix's program changes. While encouraging certification, Citrix doesn't want it to be a barrier to selling.

It seems that managing a high number of exception requests of partners wanting to sell products they were not allowed to was another reason to open up distribution. This brings up the question of how many exception requests IBM will be getting, despite having a 'no exceptions' rule.   

But IBM is making a bold move with its announcement, proclaiming that the future of its partner strategy is about its most value-added partners - something that Citrix can't claim with its own announcement. IBM realized that open distribution has meant a lowered street price for its software, and competition from volume resellers is discouraging value added partners to say the least. IBM's controlled distribution announcement is a major victory for hard working, truly value-added partners everywhere. My question is how this fantastic concept will play out in the real world. The probability of a good number of exception requests from partners is high in my mind.

So is there a theoretical 'best of both worlds' scenario here? Maybe. IBM could possibly learn from Citrix's strategy to make a program where it highly incents partners to certify, but still allows them to resell if they're not certified, even if at a meager discount. This might fix many of IBM's potential cases for exception, such as a VAR who is certified to sell two products, but not a third. And the extra margin and benefits of certification would still motivate partners to gain the skills needed for a great customer experience.

Using social tools for more effective partner programs

With all the talk about using social media in the enterprise it's no surprise that there's a growing interest in applying social media tools, processes and concepts to partner programs. This past week at the IDC Directions Conference in San Jose, CA I gave a presentation on to a full room (it was at 8:00 AM so I was pretty impressed at the level of interest). The audience was very engaged, asked lots of questions and even stuck around after to continue the conversation. In recent discussions about e2.0 (and in this post) I have established my definition of e2.0 and how I think it can impact and transform businesses so I won't go back through that material here. There are several places in enterprises where e2.0 initiatives can provide significant impact and value including internal collaboration, customers, supply chain, design chain and partners (all types ranging from alliance and OEM to VARs).

There are two broad uses for social initiatives in partner programs that are starting to emerge. The first is the use by companies to increase engagement, community and collaboration in its own partner ecosystem. Examples of these types of program elements range from the use of 3D virtual worlds like Second Life (and private label networks) for vendor : partner collaboration and partner to partner (P2P) networking to collaboration tools like mix.oracle.com and to search engine optimization (SEO) assistance for partners by vendors like IBM and Microsoft to increase partner visibility. P2P networking is of particular interest these days as both vendors and partners look for ways to increase wallet share in a tough economic climate. Surveys by IDC and other organizations have shown that partners who participate in P2P networks by building and selling joint solutions grow faster than partners who "go it alone".

The second type of initiative is an extension of the first idea down through the ecosystem, with programs that enable the partners to engage more effectively with their customers, increase local presence and a create an increased sense of community. These programs can use various social tools like blogs, communities (LinkedIn groups, private communities, Facebook fan pages, etc.), microblogging tools (like Twitter), Wiki's, etc. to help partners reach out and create closer relationships with their customers. Dassault Solidworks, for example, has a blogging program that started as a corporate program reaching out to customers and is now being extended to partners with everything from content and training to actual blog hosting. Several vendors provide syndicated content to partner websites including collateral, demos, product information, video and webcasts. IBM and Sun have these types of programs which benefit the partner by relieving them from investing in content creation and benefit the vendor by providing standardized content that is always consistent with the vendors' messaging. One of the more interesting initiatives is a recent new program from SAP called Ecohub that combines a partner solution catalog with a community site for customers. The site uses "wisdom of crowds" processes to allow customers to rate / comment on partner solutions. SAP incorporates a full "discover" - "evaluate" - "buy" process in the site to enable customers to find, buy and deploy the "best" partner solutions.

We're clearly in the early days of the application of web 2.0 concepts to partner programs but the interest is there and many vendors are jumping in with one or more initiatives this year. I believe the pace of adoption will accelerate as vendors and partners struggle to find successful ways to grow during the current recession. Vendors will need to grow their relationship with their partners and even more importantly enable partners to create and extend their relationships with end customers.

A few more thoughts on SaaS profitability and SaaS channels

  Back in Sept I did a post looking at SaaS profitability and some of the issues that seem to exist around the "pure-play" SaaS business model. I won't go back through the analysis but I realize, looking back that I focused a lot of the problem with the cost of scaleable infrastructure and neglected to discuss another issue that I believe plays into the "numbers" that I showed. Simply, most SaaS vendors sell direct today (I discussed some partner issues in this post in July). Their sales and marketing cost, especially considering that up until last year, involved a great deal of evangelizing the benefits of the model and convincing reluctant customers to give it a try, are high. The other bit of information that has surfaced though is that renewals of the subscription, often thought to be a simple matter, also involved expensive sales and marketing, much like an initial close. In some part, this might be due to the industries own marketing messaging around SaaS, easy to implement, easy to use, fast to deploy might also equal easy to switch? Direct sell, in a market that is being developed and with a product that doesn't necessarily fit into the sweet spot of traditional VAR's, was a reasonable choice. But what happens when SaaS is mainstream and vendors try to extend their reach, especially in the small and mid-markets? Conventional software wisdom would lead us to think that SaaS vendors have to look for alternate distribution models. And if SaaS is now mainstream, which I do believe, then the partner model is critical.

Last week I had a briefing from a SaaS vendor that opened my eyes to the channel question even more. It seems that Intacct, a SaaS financial management and accounting applications provider, with over 2,500 SMB customers, is sold through a combination of direct and a channel partner network. Their current VAR ecosystem counts over 100+ partners and they are aggressively growing that number and accounted for 50% of their new business last year (and growing). What's more, these VAR's are set up in a traditional "dealer" channel partner model and receive revenue for the deal for the life of the relationship + services. Intact also claims a >95% project success rate (I haven't validated that yet, I'm just repeating what was presented). Although private, Intacct is reporting that they are seeing increased activity through the end of 2008 and into 2009.

I think this shows a couple of important things, there are SaaS companies that are embracing a more traditional channel distribution model to reach the SMB customers, we will have the opportunity to see if the model can be validated over the next couple of years and see if this indirect model can positively impact the over profit model of a SaaS company. If nothing else, Intacct is a company to watch.

Interview with SageCircle's Carter Lusher on my IDC SBS Group

I dropped by the analyst and AR meet up that SageCircle hosted on Monday, January 12, 2009 in the Silicon Valley. While I was there SageCircle's Carter Lusher recorded a couple of video's, the previous one on analyst use of social media, and this one of me talking about my IDC Group, Software Business Solutions and what we're up to. Here's the link: video

Enterprise 2.0, ERP, financial crisis, open source, partner, SaaS, Social CRM, Software, VAR

Google, is this the year for the disrupter to disrupt?

As an industry analyst I've certainly joined in with my colleagues in the exercise I'll call "what if'ing"...you know, the what if this vendor does this or that and how would so and so react, how does that impact the market and most of all is this the next big disruption?? Well, I will tell you (although it's probably no big surprise) that Google is often the "big" disruptor in many of those conversations. I can certainly see, in several areas how Google "could" be a disruptor in the enterprise software market. On the other hand there have been just as many reasons on the list of why they won't be the disruptive force. I've heard (and at times supported) concepts like Google is a search and ad word company and has no real designs on enterprise software, Google apps are mostly the product of individuals using their 30% time allotment to work on what they want, Google doesn't have a real coordinated business plan behind the apps...you get the point, and I could go on, but I won't. I won't because with todays announcement Google answered most of these objections / questions.

Today Google announced the launch of its new reseller program for Google Apps (messaging, collaboration, security and compliance + the Google platform). Google claims over 1 million current business customers, and 10 million active users (access their accounts at least once in 7 days), with over 3000 new businesses signing up daily for Google Apps. The reseller program is very comprehensive, here are some of the details:

• Available immediately
• Worldwide
• Reseller retains ownership of the customer & handles billing
• Recurring revenue model for the life of the customer relationship
• Comprehensive partner enablement program that includes marketing, sales and tech training and tools for ordering, provisioning, integrating and on going management
• Partners can sign up and start training now, start transactions in March

There are currently over 50 "beta" partners in the program. The opportunity extends beyond Google apps of course, and includes the opportunity to offer services and bundle / develop more comprehensive solutions using the Google platform or other platforms like Salesforce.com's Force.com. This announcement sets Google up to have one of the only VAR channels built from the ground up for "cloud" computing and clearly demonstrates their desire to become a leader in the enterprise productivity, collaboration, messaging, security and compliance markets.

cloud, Enterprise 2.0, Microsoft, PaaS, SaaS, SaaS, salesforce.com, Software, VAR, Web 2.0

Welcome 2009, what do you have in store for us?

OK, I admit I'm pretty thankful to say good bye to 2008. Not that it was bad personally, on the contrary, on a personal level it was a very good year. But, as we all know, from a business / economic perspective it was a disaster. While I feel like I made good progress personally and professionally, I realize that many people have had severe consequences to deal with as fallout from the latest financial crisis. So, like I said, it's good to see 2008 in the rear view mirror!

Now moving on, what does 2009 have in store for us? I'm not planning on going through all my predictions for 2009 in this post, IDC has a formal process for publishing those and I'm very represented there. What I do want to do is pull out a few things that are around the edges of those predictions and talk about them a bit. Now truth is, most of these bits are already in previous blogs, but there is some value to pulling them all together. The 2008 financial crisis, the single most important driver in what will happen with the software industry, is a key factor in most of my predictions and my thinking on behaviors, trends and changes. I also believe that we are going through a fundamental industry change cycle for the software market and that we will look different on the other side of that cycle (18-24 months or so). Here are a few random thoughts:

• As a result of the crisis I think that SaaS and possibly open source software (OSS) will see a big boost in adoption, and I've covered that in some detail in past blogs (see those posts for some deeper analysis).
• Social media, social networking tools, web 2.0 concepts are catching on in the business world and that trend will accelerate this year. That said, it's still the wild west and in the end we have to figure out how to measure the impact and business value of this change. I don't know where it's going yet, will web 2.0 platforms like Facebook and Twitter be integrated into business software (for example the Salesforce - Facebook platform integration announced at Dreamforce 2008) or will a new class of enterprise 2.0 business software gain traction (Yammer, Oracle's E2.0 apps, etc.). Even though spending is declining due to the financial crisis I believe that businesses will continue to spend and experiment with these types of initiatives.
• In general, companies are not going to spend money on horizontal products and ERP upgrades if they can help it. They will spend money on high value vertical apps that solve specific business process problems. There are exceptions to this though, some markets will continue to grow at a respectable pace, products like enterprise search and content management for example, should see >10% growth this year.
• In another fallout of the financial crisis, I think businesses will increase spending in the business process outsourcing (BPO) space. The cost savings, the reduction in distractions from core business, the opportunity to increase service levels, etc. are all drivers of this trend. As a secondary and related trend, the increase in BPO spend and availability, which will surely increase competition, will have BPO providers scrambling to find lower cost solutions. The end result could be an increase in the use of open source software in BPO solutions, which would boost the overall OSS market.
• I'm beginning to think that Platform as a Service (PaaS) could be one of the key disrupters over the next few years. Part of that disruption is related to the desire for closer fit of vertical solutions (see my blog post of that topic). If this is true, then the major application players (at least Oracle, SAP and Microsoft) will have to come up with a strategy to get / build / acquire / partner for a PaaS offering and soon.
• Full blown SaaS ERP solutions like Netsuite and to some extent Workday will see good growth in this economy especially in the Mid market where companies tend to continue to invest in technology as a competitive differentiator even in a down economy.
• Google apps are a disrupter and adoption will increase in this economy.

Ok, that I think is enough for now and yes, they do look a lot like predictions, oh well. Look for my and my groups actual "predictions" in an IDC doc that will be out sometime this month.

Enterprise 2.0, ERP, financial crisis, Microsoft, open source, Oracle, outsourcing, PaaS, Project execution, Project-based enterprise, SaaS, salesforce.com, SAP, Social CRM, Software, start up, VAR, Web 2.0

New SaaS partnerships - HP / Netsuite announce a new relationship

This week Netsuite and HP announced a partnership to provide the HP VAR channel the opportunity to sell Netsuite's SaaS based ERP solutions to the SMB market segment, defined by both vendors as businesses with 1-999 employees. The agreement applies to all 15,000+ HP US VAR channel partners. The agreement is groundbreaking on several points. From a business model perspective the VAR's will act as referral partners and for that referral they will be paid a portion of the monthly subscription fee from each deal. The sale will actually be handled by the Netsuite direct sales force based on the leads provided by the VAR's. According to Netsuite, the VAR's will have right of first refusal on any services component of any deal they refer.

For each of the stakeholders, Netsuite, HP, VAR and Customer, there is a great deal of value in this arrangement. For Netsuite it gains 15,000+ referral channel distribution partners that are specifically targeted at the SMB market where its solutions have been most successful. For HP it sells more hardware since Netsuite uses HP servers exclusively in its data centers plus it provides additional revenue opportunities to its VAR partners. This is particularly important because of the current financial crisis where hardware sales are likely to suffer and HP's VAR's could have a rough couple of years. This VAR channel, which HP has developed for over 30 years is a significant asset to HP and investing in that channel's continued health is paramount for HP.

For the HP VAR's this announcement provides several new business opportunities. Any VAR (even high volume VAR's) could refer its customers to Netsuite, whose direct sales force closes some portion of the referrals, while the VAR sits back and collects a new monthly annuity stream. For the more enterprising VAR's (most likely the solution focused VAR's and SI's) the agreement provides not only the recurring annuity but a significant services opportunity in delivering implementation and training services to the new Netsuite customer. In addition to the implementation and training services there is also the opportunity that some customers will need integration services for existing on premise solutions that would need to be integrated to the new Netsuite deployment and even potentially new hardware or hardware upgrades as a part of that deal.

From the customer perspective this new arrangement should also be very attractive. SMB customers in general tend to prefer purchasing from a local business where they have existing relationships. This agreement takes advantage of those local relationships while making a comprehensive ERP solution available to SMB customers. In addition, if the VAR chooses to offer them, the SMB customer can consume the necessary services from a local and trusted source. It will be interesting to watch as this relationship unfolds over the next year to see if this type of arrangement can be used effectively by other SaaS vendors.

cloud, ERP, SaaS, SaaS, Software, VAR

Software business case 2.0

I was musing with a colleague the other day about building a business case for purchasing software and where the real value was in software implementation. I've used a methodology for years when I worked for software vendors that assisted prospects in establishing the what, why and how of the proposed software project. The basic process involved a consulting engagement that assisted the prospect in establishing their current business state, best practices for the specific industry vertical (benchmarks) and the future state of the business after the proposed project was completed. In evaluating the proposed project I used four criteria: 1. revenue, 2. cost, 3. quality and 4. innovation. The subsequent business case we developed used the four criteria and applied them to the future state to demonstrate the value of the project to the business. We looked for some combination of the criteria to use as the justification for the cost of the project. Many times this took the form of a return on investment (ROI) calculation, because, face it, that's what executives wanted to hear...that the proposed project would pay for itself in X amount of time in increased revenue or decreased cost (or the Holy Grail, both). On the softer return side you had quality or innovation, often much harder to quantify (not always though, increased innovation might be demonstrated, for example, by bringing more compelling products to market faster; increased quality might reduce scrap costs, etc.).

Lately I've started to think that the original four criteria are not the only factors any more, that something else is starting to emerge that could be used to establish value. I'm more involved in using social media tools over the last two years, so maybe that's impacting my thinking more, a good thing. I also have come to believe that Web 2.0-like tools should be used in the enterprise, so again that's opened me up to some different thinking. So at this point I'd add a fifth criteria, intimacy to my list. Intimacy can be applied to new projects to gage the increase in dialog, engagement, and interaction in an ecosystem. This might be most obvious when applied to Social CRM tools, which by their design increase customer intimacy but the term could also be used in a supply / design chain or perhaps in a partner ecosystem as well. Applying Enterprise 2.0 tools in the enterprise to increase intimacy. I will admit that I'm still in the early stages of thinking this metric through, but I'm convinced that this is an important new part of evaluating the value of a prospective software project.

Enterprise 2.0, ERP, Project management, Social CRM, Software, Web 2.0

Oracle Openworld Update

Finally on Day 4 of Openworld (OOW) I'll get some time to provide an update. I have kept up a steady conversation on Twitter, but it's time to provide more information. This is my third OOW in three years as an analyst and the most obvious observation is that the overall messaging and strategy is consistent across the three conferences. Three OOW's ago was just a few months after the launch of the Applications Unlimited program and the first attempt to clarify and define the overall Oracle business strategy. In Monday's opening Keynote by Oracle President Charles Phillips he reenforced the overall messaging: Complete - Open - Integrated. From an applications strategy Complete / Open / Integrated translates to Applications Unlimited or a broad and comprehensive portfolio of industry solutions, SOA enabled (open standards) and integrated through Applications Integration Architecture (AIA). There are several key themes that are continuing across the applications strategy, investment in the horizontal suites, expansion of the vertical applications, development of more Process Integration Packs (PIP's) for integration and moving closer to Fusion Applications. Last year, Anthony Lye (who at that time was responsible for CRM On Demand, but now has responsibility for the whole CRM suite) showed the first of the Fusion Apps, mobile tools for sales people, and it turns out, gave us a glimpse into what has turned into a series of moves to rollout Web 2.0-like functionality into the enterprise. This year, with the announcement of things like Social CRM, a plethora of iPhone Apps ranging from asset management to expense reporting (which included a cool feature to automatically track miles driven based on the iPhone's GPS), Oracle makes a strong move into Enterprise 2.0.

At all OOW's there are a whole list of "announcements" and this year is no exception. One of the biggest announcements was for a new product line called Beehive. Beehive replaces the old Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS) and provides a collaboration platform for internal management of all communication and collaboration channels. The platform provides hooks into a companies existing email or a replacement email system, presence, calendaring, IM, directory, phone, etc. and should pose an interesting alternative to other Unified Communications (UC) offerings on the market. Oracle has used Beehive internally for up to around 1200 employees for close to a year as well as supported several beta / new customer deployments to date. On the partner programs side of house Oracle rolled out it's new Partner portal and a host of Web 2.0 type tools for partner enablement. Another area of interest is the changes rolled out by Oracle's customer support organization around the new My Oracle Support. In its first release MY Oracle Support provides customers with a way to interact with Oracle and maintain current configuration information to enable more proactive and effective support. I learned from Global Support head Juergen Rottler that in a next release to come shortly over the next couple of months Oracle will up the level of support by providing communities around various customer segments. These communities will encourage P2P networking, sharing of best practices and issue resolution through the power of crowds.

Overall OOW this year is up beat and seems to have a lot of energy emanating from partners, customers and employees. The business strategy, growth through acquisition focused around more and better industry vertical solutions is fully baked and continues to drive growth. Oracle continues to invest in all major acquired brands and continues to innovate across those brands. Fusion Applications are coming, we saw, under NDA of course, several demonstrations that were very interesting. And this year, Oracle started on a path of demonstrating that they are Web 2.0 savvy and they are learning how to incorporate those concepts into the enterprise with offerings like Beehive, mobile apps, Social CRM, etc.