Enterprise Software Sexy like Diane Keaton, Not Britney

Scoble asks Why enterprise software isn’t sexy in response to a question recently raised by Bill Gates. And I say its sexy but its in the eye of the beholder. Yes, consumers get turned on looking at a map overlayed with restaurant locations but my enterprise customers want to see real value.

Sexy Diane Keaton

Here are five things that turn CIO's on:

1. Virtualization: A data center that has fewer wires, requires less energy and is easier to manage is nothing short of an IT dream.
2. SaaS: Ability to rapidly deploy new functionality without having to buy new hardware and go through lengthy implementation cycles - its sexy the way a husband cooking dinner is sexy way for a wife. Again, it takes a certain eye and maturity.
   
3. Visibility: Call it Business Intelligence, Business Activitity Monitoring or Complex Event Processing, the ability to have both senior executives and employees performing the actual tasks be able to get actionable intelligence is huge.
4. Collaboration: I recently attended a Cisco telepresence session and I don't care who you are and what you smoke, that stuff is outright sexy. And so is Oracle's Social CRM.
5. Transactions: Yes, age-old transactional applications. When they just work, its sexy. The way a plain perfect old black dress just works.
   

As Vinnie say Damn proud to be "un-sexy" and I agree, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The cool projects that large enterprises are working on may not be known to everyone like the launch of a new weather widget on Facebook but its changing our lives. There is so much cool stuff going on in the bedrooms that you kids don't even know and can't imagine...

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Update: Michael Krigsman responds with Robert Scoble doesn’t understand enterprise software; Dan Farber writes Don’t weep for underappreciated enterprise software; and also: more from Dennis Howlett, Craig Cmehil and Sandagopan.