Ron Jacobs : ARCast

SaaS - meet the little guy and the middle man

ronjacobs — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:10:00 GMT

Working for one of the biggest software companies in the world I have to say is always quite interesting. We have resources on top of resources to get things done. But I can recall about 16 years ago when I was one of the little guys. I wrote a piece of software that extracted time clock data from Kronos’ TimeKeeper Central (timeclock software) and integrated it into ADP’s PC Payroll application. At the time there was only one other solution for doing this that was vastly over-engineered and very expensive. Now I was a one man operation with no marketing, no evangelists, no test team just me. I sold my program over and over again for a fraction of the price of the other guys and customers loved it because it was so simple. I knew that if I could just market this stuff in a bigger way I could have a real hit on my hands.

Of course in 1990 there was no internet, no software as a service and I didn’t have the marketing budget to compete with the big guys so after I moved to Silicon Valley and started writing shrink wrap software my payroll integration software business died a quiet death. How different the story could be today for the little guy. With the web your customers could find you. You could offer a free try before you buy download great stuff but you will still need more and this is where the middlemen come in.

They are the guys who help you to market, sell and support your customers. They might also help you to test and deploy your software as well. These are companies like Flatburger. I recently did a series of interviews with the Flatburger guys and their customers at their ModSoftCon ’06 in Las Vegas. These guys are focused on helping the little guys (DotNetNuke Module Developers) compete with the big guys (like us?) in a very cool way. You don’t have to be a mega corporation to win any more – who knows... maybe I’ll go back into business for myself someday...

Check out these episodes of ARCast.TV on Flatburger from my SaaS @ Work series.

ARCast.TV - SaaS @ Work - Flatburger Overview

ARCast.TV - SaaS @ Work - Flatburger Architecture Overview

ARCast.TV - SaaS @ Work - ModSoftCon '06

And for more on DotNetNuke check out this interesting ARCast Radio interview with Shaun Walker and the DNN team

ARCast.net - DotNetNuke on the forefront of SaaS and modular software with Shaun Walker

Ron Jacobs

Host of ARCast.TV and ARCast Radio

The youngest developer I've ever met

ronjacobs — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:32:00 GMT

Arfa Karim Randhawa is one of the most mature 11 year old girls you are ever going to meet. And not only that, she is the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional - a title that allowed her to meet Bill Gates and President Musaraf at just 10 years old. I met her at Tech-Ed Barcelona and recorded a video of her along with Simon Brown VP of Developer and Platform Evangelism for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Simon had a crazy idea - he asked me to post the video on YouTube so I thought, why not. Let’s give it a go. After working out how to encode it properly for YouTube I must admit they have a really great web application. It is amazingly fast and easy to use. No wonder they have done so well. So go on, have a look at it. It’s only 6:18 of your life.

If you prefer to have the Windows Media version for download you can get it here.

Update: we also posted it on the new soapbox.msn.com site. You can see it here.

The ARCast Top 20 for FY07

ronjacobs — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 01:14:00 GMT

Ever wonder what ARCast episodes are hot? Well forget about those measly numbers you see on Skyscrapr and Channel9 for page views. ARCast is downloaded by a lot more people than you think. Ready for the real numbers?

Episode	Downloads
ARCast – SQL Server Application Platform (Part 1 of 2)	14968
ARCast – WCF, Workflow and Cardspace in the real world	12929
ARCast - The Making of a Miracle - TradeMe.co.nz	10383
ARCast – Web V.Next Panel with Scott Guthrie, George Moore and Rowan Simpson (Part 2 of 2)	10209
ARCast – SQL Server Application Platform (Part 2 of 2)	9907
ARCast - Get on the Grid	9825
ARCast - Just Enough Architecture	9748
ARCast – Business Data Catalog (Part 2 of 2)	9583
ARCast – Business Data Catalog (Part 1 of 2)	9397
ARCast - To VB or not to VB	8889
ARCast - Office 2007 Open XML Format (Part 1 of 2)	8743
ARCast – Web V.Next Panel with Scott Guthrie, George Moore and Rowan Simpson (Part 1 of 2)	8520
ARCast - Automating Software Development	8260
ARCast - Tools for Eliminating Uncertainty	8054
ARCast - Architecting CommSee - Services (Bonus Video)	7840
ARCast - Microsoft Certified Architect Program	7627
ARCast - Office 2007 Open XML Format (Part 2 of 2)	7562
ARCast - Hey Architects! Meet the Office 2007 System (Part 2 of 2)	7390
ARCast - Hey Architects! Meet the Office 2007 System (Part 1 of 2)	7338
ARCast - Zero Defect Software	7260

Tell me what you think about ARCast - www.arcastsurvey.net

ronjacobs — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:58:00 GMT

Since most people listen to ARCast while on the go (in the car, on the train, jogging etc.) I wanted to make it easy for you to remember the survey URL so I registered the domain www.arcastsurvey.net and pointed it at the survey. Already I've had a number of responses so thanks for your input - keep it up - you are making the show better.

Take the ARCast listener survey

ronjacobs — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:24:00 GMT

Today I posted the ARCast listener survey in an attempt to learn how we can make the show better. If you listen to ARCast, please take the survey. If you have not listened to the show... what are you waiting for? Check it out at http://www.arcast.net