Stepping up to own the software

it. Talk to us, get on the Microsoft radar and we can evangelise on your behalf,” says Frank Arrigo, Microsoft’s Developer Evangelist.

This route not only sounds good, but makes proven financial sense too. The .Net clusters include assistance from industry and state governments and have a proven track record of helping businesses to secure overseas sales.

Melbourne professional services firm Readify, for example, says its participation in the Victoria.Net cluster helped in finding and securing new customers including a $2.8 million global contract, while Cardanal Pty Ltd received a $790,000 grant to develop its software, which helps diagnose patients’ heart conditions, including early detection and predication of cardiovascular disease.

The industry also offers events such as The STIRR Network, a group that offers networking opportunities for technology entrepreneurs.

STIRR.net, for example, lists groups and events worldwide dedicated to helping technology companies bring their products to market. The group held a Sydney meeting late in 2006 and intends more get-togethers.

Products ... and products
If this kind of networking does not seem appropriate for you or your technology, do not fret. Another way to use the tools you have developed is to ‘productise’ without taking them to market as a standalone offering.
Sydney telephony reseller Lake Corporation, for example, has found that branding its expertise as a product has enhanced its credibility and selling power, even though it has not created a product that others resell.

The company’s sales manager, David Wyndham, explains that the company productised a tool it found had broad applicability for its clients.

“When you talk to a large contact centre, they’ll explain that integration between their various systems means contact centre agents often have to move through 15 or 16 screens just to perform a simple task such as updating a client’s phone number,” Wyndham says.

Lake developed software to ease this problem and, after finding that the proven ability to solve this kind of problem opened doors, branded the tools under the name Xcalibur.

“Making Xcalibur a product gives the clients something they can touch and hold,” Wyndham says.

“They don’t have to rely on us saying that we have the skills to solve their problems, they can see the product. It gives us a more rapid rate of acceptance and gives the client a level of comfort.”

Producing a product version of Lake’s services has also opened doors within large organisations, extending the scope beyond call centres.

“Xcalibur is applicable to other transaction processes so with a big client like a bank, for instance, it has allowed us to have spread our engagement beyond the contact centre and into other areas of the business.”

Press the (virtual) flesh There are of course other ways to promote your product.

SSHED’s Doyle suggests courting industry blogs by reading up on influential bloggers’ interests so you can understand how to get your product onto their radar.

“You can even find out which conferences they go to and introduce yourself,” Doyle says.

“A personal recommendation for one of the luminaries in the industry is gold.”
Microsoft’s Arrigo suggests going a step further and starting your own blog.

“Accidental discovery happens less and less these days. You have to be a self-promoter. All the search engine juice in the world is not going to help you if you aren’t out there letting people know,” Arrigo says.

Robert Bowen, the National director of COMET, says it can give businesses the free services of a business adviser as well as a generous subsidy of 80 percent of agreed expenditure to purchase.

own software stepping the to up