I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
After a quick (4 days, 3 nights) in London, it’s hard not to get excited about the UK. This is the 4th company I’ve pounded the streets for. I did my OE in the USA and only started coming up here 10-12 years ago. In the last 2 years I think I’ve been up 7 times. Each time you learn a bit more about how things work, your networks are better, you’re better resourced and it’s just easier.
For NZ software companies especially I really recommend the UK. The usual reasons are good cultural fit, that the New Zealand mafia is everywhere and always keen to help good companies, it’s a massive market, yet it’s very easy to get around.
More specifically there are some exciting things going on here. I had the morning with Microsoft out at TVP. There is a definite buzz around SaaS and this year seems to be a tech boom. Anecdotally they believe the UK is well ahead of other markets with SaaS adoption. That seems to be backed up with IDC recently upping industry forecasts.
Not my primary space these days, but as I’ve mentioned before I think a great opportunity for NZ software companies is Enterprise SaaS. It is red hot in the UK right now with multi million GBP funding happening at the concept level.
The carriers here are becoming sophisticated in the application space with big investments in their partner ecosystems. NZ could learn a whole lot here. The UK Telco’s seem to be the ones setting the pace with a lot of other carriers monitoring their programmes.
Just spending another few days in the UK fills you with opportunities and alters your perspective. I really recommend that other NZ companies get on a plane and make it happen. And there is plenty of help to tap you in. NZTE and especially the UK Beachheads team are very well placed to give you ideas, make introductions and validate strategy. For some reason the pipeline of NZ software companies is pretty thin. Where are you all?
Saw the new iPod Nano. Ridiculously, magically, small. The screen is amazing. BlackBerry 8800’s and Curve’s are the phone of choice on the trains. Other trinkets for the traveling man that caught my eye included the new StarWalker Blue, which is just about to be launched (apparently there is a Charlie Chapman collector’s model due soon). Also spotted the big boy sized Navitimer World for the first time and that’s making a case to leap onto my wrist.
Just landed at LAX for the ’sports’ leg of the journey.
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I just got back from London and couldn’t agree more with your perception of the UK market for SaaS. People in my network who had never heard of SaaS a year ago are now strong advocates of this business model. Importantly, most people I talked to are ready to commit part of their IT budget to SaaS. With UK hearts and minds in the right place, there is heaps of potential for NZ software companies.