What should be the business model for the software and services in this economy? What are customer expectations from these businesses? TiE-Boston's Software Service Business Forum (SSBF) discussed these issues at their last meeting held at MIT on January 9th.

SSBF is a Special Interest Group (SIG) of TiE-Boston designed to provide its members networking opportunity and education in the arena of software technology. The forum meets about ten times a year and aims at providing entrepreneurial counseling, education on market and technology trends and forging personal and professional relationships. More information about SSBF and other SIGs of TiE-Boston can be found at http://www.tie-boston.org/forums/index.html.

The focus of this workshop was "Alternate Business models in Software and Service Industry".

The meeting began with a brief update of current state of affairs on software and service business models by Tilak Subramanium, Marketing and Business Development Executive of a Startup. Flaws in the traditional models of this industry and new requirements of the industry like increased sale cycles, increased competitive software business environment, etc. were addressed. Attendees were then divided into a three teams and were guided to work through business models.

The teams picked certain products and tried to a complete analysis from the sales, marketing and business perspective. Actual business models were developed and presented to the whole group for critiquing. Many groups focused on the fact that business models models should have an unambiguous and measurable ROI, which should be clearly visible to the customers. In this economy customers are very conscientious with their investment and would like to clearly see the returns. Providing measures to assess the product and generating reports is very valuable. Providing reports on the product and gathering feedback facilitates in improving the product and understanding customer needs.

Suggestions for alternate financial models include development of software through small finances needed to enter a particular market before targeting for a second round of funding. Sales models that provide fixed recurring income rather than then a huge initial income were seen as more viable

Lokvani had an opportunity to talk to Tilak Subrahmanian about SSBF

Lokvani:What is the goal of these meetings?
Tilak:Our hope is to bring TiE members of various backgrounds and discuss business opportunities and challenges on specific technical topic in Software and services.

Lokvani : What do you expect attendees to gain from these meetings? Tilak : This meeting was focused on "Alternate Business ..." and we had discussions on applying business models from other industries to software and services, e.g. Apples feature and function specific model, Dells good product yet cost-effective, etc . Attendee will get an insight into challenges, hear experiences from people from different areas of same business and discuss their problems. And get the brain thinking.

Lokvani: What are the demographics of the attendees of this meeting? Tilak :The meetings are attended by investment community, management and business professionals, and professionals with experience with service and product background.

Lokvani : How is it different from the regular TiE meetings?
Tilak : The group is smaller giving ample time for learning, discussing and networking. The groups are focused in a particular area.

Lokvani: Do you focus on the latest technologies and their applictions?
Tilak: We do, but we do it from business perspective. For example, we had a session on "Web Services"; we talked about how it is going to affect the businesses and what are the opportunities. We don't get into the technical details about how it works, protocol, etc. We have a "so what" approach, if a technology exists, so what does that mean, how can it effect me and how should I prepare myself to make business from it.

Lokvani Thanks Tilak for his time.

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