Srinivas Krishnamurti on Enterprise Software 2.0:
I continue to be amazed at how Apple streamlined its user experience
and buying process. For example, the combination of iPods and iTunes
has completely revolutionized the way consumers think about buying and
listening to music. iTunes offers thousands of songs in a central
location and allows users to “evaluate” a song before buying it.
Buying a song, uploading onto your iPod and listening to it is so quick
and easy that anyone can do it. There is something for enterprise IT
vendors to learn from this. Why can’t enterprises buy software as
easily as buying a song from iTunes? Why can’t enterprises deploy
software as easily as copying a downloaded song from iTunes onto an
iPod?That’s where the Virtual Appliance Marketplace
comes into the picture. The VAM is a library of over 330 virtual
appliances spanning collaboration, email security, enterprise
applications, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention, operating
systems, and traffic management. Simply download to evaluate a
software package and if you like it, you can even buy it from the
marketplace. One stop-shopping for enterprise software!
