First Annual Enterprise Software Awards: Mediocrity, Meltdowns and More
The first-ever show honored ineptitude, arrogance and near-smackdowns in the enterprise software.
The first-annual Enterprise Software Unplugged Awards were recently held at the Palace Hotel Ballroom, honoring software mediocrity, customer negligence and business ineptitude in the enterprise software industry.
The Award is known as the "ESUie" (pronounced s - you - ee), and winners receive the prestigious ESUie statue—a tin replica of a software installation CD. No video exists of the event, but here's a transcript of the 2009 ESUie Awards Ceremony:
Master of Ceremonies Tom Bergeron, host of "America's Funniest Home Videos": "Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the first-annual ESUie Awards Show, where we will look back and honor the highlights and lowlights in the enterprise software industry!"
"It's great to see so many Silicon Valley celebrities and cut-throat competitors all under the same roof. We've got Oracle's Larry Ellison seated right over there, and there's SAP's Leo Apotheker. Of course, there's Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer."
"Boy, if it gets any chillier in here, we're going to have to turn the heat on!" [Audience laughs politely] "There's so much animosity in the audience, I hope someone frisked these guys before the show for any concealed weapons!" [A couple of chuckles] "I mean, geez. The last time I saw this many icy stares, I was in the middle of my second divorce."
"OK, folks. Let's get right to the Awards!"
The Award for The Most Hypocritical Marketing Campaign goes to...SAP! In late 2008, right after SAP told its own employees to "not order any new IT equipment at this time," the German software giant launched a marketing offensive, reminding its current and would-be customers that a recessionary environment is when "great companies invest in SAP software to beat the competition!"
M.C.: "Great stuff! Accepting on behalf of SAP is CEO Leo Apotheker, who, I should point out, speaks five languages fluently."
Apotheker: "Ich hasse Dich."
M.C.: "What does that mean?"
Apotheker: "It's German for 'I hate you.'"
M.C.: "Thank you! Leo Apotheker, everyone!"
The Award for "The Most Half-Hearted Attempt at Helping Customers During a Recession" goes to...Oracle! When SAP came to its senses in spring 2009 and "modified" the new pricing program for SAP Enterprise Support (delaying much-talked-about maintenance price increases), Oracle responded to its customers recessionary and budgetary woes by announcing a very small and short-term pricing discount for enterprise software customers sticking with aging versions of Oracle applications (JDE, E-Business, PeopleSoft). Oracle Corporation: We feel your pain!
M.C.: "Accepting on behalf of Oracle is CEO Larry Ellison."
Ellison: "I also hate you and everyone else here. I'm going to go fly my jet plane."
M.C.: "He's really not leaving, folks. Thanks, Larry!"
The "Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree" Award goes to...Marc Benioff, of Salesforce.com! Benioff's use of tactics and hyperbole that he learned from his former boss, Larry Ellison, has been legendary during the past year. Benioff said that software-as-a-service models, like Salesforce.com's CRM line, couldn't even be compared to "mature, dying models like Oracle and SAP,which are maybe already dead." Benioff also relished the spotlight when he announced that his company was "proud to be the first billion-dollar cloud computing company." Dropping even more truth bombs, Benioff added: "At a time when capital is precious, big-ticket software purchases just don't make sense."
M.C.: "Ladies and gentlemen, Marc Benioff!"
Benioff: "Oracle and SAP will be out of business by the end of 2010!"
M.C.: "Great stuff, Marc!"
The "Thank You for All the Billable Hours" Award, Sponsored by the American Bar Association, goes to...Oracle and SAP! The TomorrowNow-SAP-Oracle legal saga dragged on into 2009, with no end data in sight
Previous Post: SaaS vs. On-Premise Apps: Can't We All Just Get Along?Next Post: Are We Witnessing the Rebirth of Microsoft, Mark II?
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
