Crossing the Chasm by Giving Away Software for Free?
Over on FlexLive.net Zee is discussing ideas how to increase the adoption of Adobe LiveCycle software. LiveCycle is Adobe’s product family of J2EE server software for forms and document creation and management in the enterprise.
Zee writes…
“Well, first the product managers have to realize that grass-roots adoption matters even for enterprise prodcuts…
Hopefully, core products in the LiveCycle lineup such as the form server and the workflow engine could all be made free by the LiveCycle 8 release.”
I agree that it is important to ensure that enterprise developers get easy access to the software for evaluation and prototyping through a Developer Network. However the decision to introduce new enterprise software applications in a productive evironment includes other factors. I would argue the license fee of enterprise software is typically only a minor factor in Total Cost of Ownership considerations.
An important element to enterprise adoption is the requirement that the new software integrates seemlessly with existing enterprise applications (what I like to call “being a good corporate citizen”). IT departments are busy maintaining and updating existing software; Introducing new software means stress and uncertainty.
Making it easy to deploy, integrate and maintain the software in an existing infrastrutcure will lower the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership of the software) and therefore make a decision to introduce new technology easier.
Therefore Adobe decided to partner with other enterprise software companies. Specifically our strategic partnership with SAP is an important element to accomplish wide adoption of LiveCycle… and yes I am biased since I am the Product Manager for the SAP Adobe partnership. Over three years ago we started to work with SAP to tightly integrate forms functionality into SAP applications. I actually spent two years in the SAP headquarter in Walldorf to facilitate the integration and evangelize Adobe software.
Today SAP is shipping core componets of LiveCycle (incl. the LiveCycle Designer and modules from LiveCycle Forms) as part of their SAP NetWeaver application platform. It is called SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe and actually is included in the default installation of the SAP Web Application Server. Interactive Forms provides the infrastructure for both print forms (e.g. invoices, orders, paystubs, tax forms) as well as interactive PDF forms in SAP applications. SAP is currently migrating over 2000 print form templates from legacy technology to Adobe based forms technology (about 900 forms are already migrated and available with mySAP ERP 2005). It is just a matter of time (since it takes SAP customers a number of years to upgrade to new releases) till every SAP customer will use Adobe forms technology. Given that SAP owns the majority of the enterprise software market I would argue that this is a pretty good strategy to cross the chasm.
So to a degree we are actually already executing a twist of Zee’s idea. The core forms technology is delivered free to all SAP customers as part of SAP NetWeaver. The license allows SAP cutomers to use the technology free of charge for print forms. Only if customers want to use interactive PDF forms in a production environment they require an additional license (which is distributed by SAP).
Finally since Interactive Forms is based on LiveCycle Forms technology other products like LiveCycle Policy Server or LiveCycle Barcoded Forms will be of interest to SAP customers as well.
“I doubt any LiveCycle product manager would be reading my blog, but like I said, grass-roots matters.”
Well, I am reading your Blog and I also forwarded it to the LiveCycle Product Management team.
3 Comments to Crossing the Chasm by Giving Away Software for Free?
I’m glad someone is taking my rants seriously 😉
i think one of factors holding livecycle (and many enterprise products) back is the lack of specialists in the field. the original motivation behind my idea was to make livecycle accessible enough so people could try it out, learn it on their own, and put it on their resumes. by making the core parts of livecycle free, individuals and smaller organizations would be able to adopt the technology to solve their problems at hand, and in the process building up brand loyalty.
the partnership with SAP is definitely very exciting. i think lc has a pretty good shot crossing the chasm 
DonAugust 26, 2006
I think you understimate the impact of software cost impact to even very LARGE enterprises. Companies are tired of spending big $ on solutions that FAIL. When you are trying to get market adoption, you have to decide if market penetration is important to you…if so, you have to bite the bullet and get your teeth in. You can charge more for the bells and whistles surrounding the technology. Livecycle is a great tool, but it is a one trick pony. By that I mean, it automates workflow and offline documents etc. But the company still has to handle document management, ERP, CRM etc….a lot of money gets spent. I have clients who are addicted to Sharepoint…why? It does a lot for a low cost and it turns viral quicklu (a plus and a minus) . So finding a cheaper way to get Livecycle STARTED in enterprise is a good thing.
Hey,
I love what you’e doing!
Don’t ever change and best of luck.
Raymon W.
July 26, 2006