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The Business of Software 24

Posted by samzenpus from the sell-it dept.
pankaj_kumar writes "The business of software usually gets tons of footage by the tech media covering its various facets: products, people, organizations, its economics, business models, technology trends and myriad other related things. So one would think that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say something original. However, this collection of blog entries by noted blogger Eric Sink, founder of SourceGear, a vendor of source code control system, and developer of a Web browser at Spyglass that later came to become Internet Explorer, manages to do just that. He does so by focusing on workings of a lesser known niche in software business, that of privately held small ISVs, relating to his own personal experiences in a very engaging manner." Read the rest of Pankaj's review.
Eric Sink on the Business of Software
author Eric Sink
pages 320
publisher Apress
rating 8
reviewer Pankaj Kumar
ISBN 1590596234
summary compilation of essays on founding and running a small ISV


If you are like me and rely mostly on news reports, either in print or online, to track your industry then you mostly read about VC backed startups or large publicly traded companies. It is too easy to forget or not realize that software started as a cottage industry and there still are a lot of mature, privately held small companies building and selling profitable products literally from a cottage. Their workings, forces driving key decisions and a lot of other things differ from the younger VC backed startups or bigger publicly held ones in significant ways. Eric's essays talk about this difference and the realities, both good and bad, of being small.

If you are looking at starting your own software company or just interested in gaining deeper insight into this segment of the industry then go, buy this book. In fact you don't even have to do that -- most of the essays are freely available on Eric's blog. But I must mention that even though I had read some of the essays online, reading them in the book, away from the computer and thousands other exciting things just a click away on the net, was a a much more positive experience.

Although most of the essays are original, informative and highly readable, some stand out from the crowd: Whining By a Barrel of Rocks talks about opportunities for small ISVs with the analogy of a barrel filled with large stones (ie; big apps) but still capable of holding many more small pebbles; Starting Your Own Business contains nuggets of street-smart advice for wannabe software entrepreneurs; Make More Mistakes recounts Eric's decisions and actions in his career as an entrepreneur that didn't work out the way he had hoped; Great Hacker != Great Hire critiques the famous piece by Paul Graham points out the considerations of developing software and doing business in a real world.

Actually, there are more than the above four that stand out, but I will leave it here. In fact, one of the quotes that I like most appears in The Game is Afoot: "This issue is not a check box; it's a slider." Although the comment was made in context of being conservative or bold, I think it applies to most issues we encounter. Very few things in life are either black or white. They need careful deliberation within a given context and a balanced response. In fact, Eric manages to illustrate this very seemingly obvious but difficult to practice idea in the domain of small ISV with help of a number of analogies with popular games in The Game is Afoot essay.

As much I liked the book, this review will not be fair without a discussion of its shortcomings or boundaries, at least the way I see. Keep in mind that the book is a compilation of blog entries based on personal experience and beliefs, not a work of research. So do not expect official or industry analyst numbers or survey results to back up the claims. Want to know about the approximate number of small ISVs in US and total revenue generated by them have changed over last 5 years, 10 years?. No luck. In fact, the book doesn't even mention these numbers for any year.

Also, I found the essays to be too heavily leaning towards desktop software. Given the emergence of the Web, its potential to disrupt established players and its friendliness to individuals and smaller organizations, it is indeed surprising that Eric doesn't talk much about Web based software opportunities. In fact, lately there have been many success stories where services built and operated by single individuals or very small teams have become very popular and bought by bigger companies.

Another inescapable idea in the world of software that finds scant mention in these essays is open source software and its famed development process. And I don't necessarily mean the launching a business based on open source software, but rather how to reconcile with the fact that open source software exists and all businesses, especially the smaller ones, have to survive and thrive in the same world. This is perhaps explained by author's own experience as recounted in Making More Mistakes essay where he talks about his lone effort to create an Open source software AbiWord and how it failed, at least from financial perspective. Perhaps therein lies his message!

Overall, I would sum up my review of this book as a nice and balanced work by an articulate software guy with deep technical expertise and keen business sense."

You can purchase Eric Sink on the Business of Software from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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The Business of Software More

The Business of Software

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  • Oh no - blog entries turned into a book (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24, 2006 @04:29PM (#15397165)
    We're through the looking glass people!

  • Coincidence? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by markov_chain ( 202465 )
    Joel Spolsky, famous for his essays about the software industry, also founded a source control business. What is going on here :)

    • Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mingot ( 665080 )
      Joel does bug tracking. It is interesting to note that Eric's product did integrate with Joel's, though.

    • Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Superfreaker ( 581067 )
      I thought the article was bout one of the forums at Joel's site:

      "The Business of Software"
      http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz [joelonsoftware.com]

  • A run-on sentence about a blog related to IE. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    However, this collection of blog entries by noted blogger Eric Sink, founder of SourceGear, a vendor of source code control system, and developer of a Web browser at Spyglass that later came to become Internet Explorer, manages to do just that.

    Ah, bloggers, run-on sentences, and Internet Explorer. I cannot imagine what these all have in common.

  • open source *is* the future (Score:4, Interesting)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2006 @05:13PM (#15397450)
    Open source is about way more than free software. It is about the fact that the service and support value of software is becoming more valuable than the commodity value of software as society enters the information age. The falure to accept that is either deciving, a set up, or just a plin falure to understand the future of the industry. Perhaps it's just denial, a refusal to see outside the Microsoft box.
    • I work for a software company that services the health club industry and, though we don't use open source, we are in a similar situation where the value of the services we provide is greater than the value of the software we provide. The health club, gym, tennis club, or what have you receives modules for EFT Billing, Accounts Receivable, Point of Sale, Front Desk Check-In, Reports, Bookings and more, all for free. Then they use our billing and collections services, which is where we make money. Tech sup
    • Quintessential /. patronising tripe.

      Open source may well be the future, but it isnt the present.

      > as society enters the information age
      bla bla bla

      The trouble with the services/support model is there is a built in conflict.. if software is free and support/service costs money, the more intuitive and less buggy the software is, the less money there is to be made from it.

      In the long term society will be better off without the concept of IP at all, but we're in a transition period. Selling software for money

  • Read All About Apple... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2006 @05:19PM (#15397494)
    If you want to learn about the business of software, read the half-dozen or so books on Steve Jobs and Apple. (Which I did over the last few months.) Assuming, of course, that your head doesn't explode first. I'm looking forward to reading I Woz by the other Steve at Apple this fall. :)
  • I work for a business which makes its living supporting other businesses. Used to be time clocks, typewriters, and so on; it's moved on a bit now. Some of what it does is 'software'
    Inside the badgelock, all sorts of strange software wanders around. Gets written, tested, revised, ported to Z sometimes, used for all kinds of purposes.
    Before it goes out, it has to have its copyrights put on. Then we have to decide. Is it 'Object Code Only, All Rights Reserved' ? Or is it 'Source Code Only, Change All You Like'

  • Surely.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Frightening ( 976489 )
    ...this must be available in pdf. Can somebody post a .torrent link plz?

    Oh wait.

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