Aceyducey said:
A lot of companies died, but the survivors are now close to becoming 'normal' corporate citizens.
Interesting how people remember the bust & don't see the positive outcomes - the new technologies, more innovative business models (the fittest that survived).
Hi Acey,
I remember reading recently, that there are alot of very smart people out in the IT dot-com boom who will be one-shot millionaires. The "new paradigm" said the internet had it's own currency, it's own business model and didn't need real money to survive. Some of their investors may have ridden the tailcoats to fortunes, but many others would have taken a fall. The initial owners may be rich. They may think they have knowledge about how to run a business in the "new paradigm", but in the end, they didn't have what it takes to repeat the successes they had.
The ones that survived had a business model that worked for them, their employees and customers, had the personality to transfer that vision and hard work into a simple, standardized and repeatable operation and were in the right place at the right time. I don't know the ratios, but not every dot.com made it. Few few.
Out of the ashes, those that had deep pockets, and/or really good products and systems,
and learned from all the mistakes made before them learned how to survive. But they only stood the test of time after the technology curve shifted from the visionaries to the followers.
Is Derivex a visionary or a follower? We don't know. I think they're the first one. So this entire company, including their patented, proprietary software, might be a "version 1.0". Hmmm.
I work with computer system designers who crank out fantastic documentation and they think just because they're beyond programming now, they're geniuses. I just look them square in the eyes and say, "Remember, paper doesn't crash."
And when designers who actually can cut code and program then complain to me that writing design documentation is boring and a waste of time, I tell them, "The documentation is the only, ONLY proof I have that you actually
thought about it".
On the other hand...
As a consumer, the dot-com era has changed my life. I have cheap and plentiful bandwidth. I can communciate easily with my family on the other side of the world. I can talk to like-minded people like on this forum for free. FOR FREE!!!. Do I care how Somersoft make their money? No. But is their business model simple? Probably yes. Is the software they write simple. Well, the area of knowledge is big, but it's relatively easy to use. Is the detailed computer programming that went into that part of the software more complicated than the average joe can understand? You betcha it's bloody complicated. Should I worry if I don't understand it? No. So long as the works, I don't care.
For me, the question I want answered after I've read the PDS is, if the program crashes, do I lose all my work?
I don't know if a PDS is supposed to answer that question. Any of our financial types care to provide guidance on what a PDS should answer?
Jireh