Seeking Safe Harbor in the Enterprise Market
By Ray Valdés
Navigating the turbulent waters of the New Economy continues to be a difficult challenge for managers of dot-com companies. Whether business-to-consumer, business-to-business, Internet infrastructure, or application service provider sectors, today's headlines show disheartening layoffs and flattened stock prices. A recent trend among many beleaguered companies in these troubled sectors is to look to the high-end corporate market, more commonly known as the enterprise market, as a possible safe harbor.
The promise of the enterprise market is illuminated by the success of Internet infrastructure and tool vendors that were able to crack this market early on. For example, companies such as Vignette and Interwoven have been rewarded with multibillion-dollar stock market valuations, numbers that remain respectably large, even after recent market downturns. These past successes have led many companies in related sectors, whether ailing or in good health, to revamp their product positioning and repackage their technology to chase what appears to be one of the few remaining lucrative opportunities.
This month, I'll examine the prospects for the success of Internet infrastructure companies in the enterprise market, beginning with the basics of what defines enterprise-level technology, and the reasons behind specific enterprise requirements and priorities. Although some of these concepts may seem basic or obvious, it appears that many dot-com companies are unaware of them and are bound to repeat mistakes their predecessors have made.<>
