On my way to the AMR conference this morning, I heard a radio show focused on the words "enlightened self-interest" - collaborative strategies even with competitors.
That common thread - without invoking those exact words - is flowing through just about every presentation at the AMR conference.
Shai Agassi talked about the SAP Developer Network (SDN) - 350,000 developers worldwide. It is also encouraging a number of complementary software vendors through its x-apps (its version of composite apps) ecosystem. He said a couple of times - it is a great time for innovative, focused new vendors to work with us.
Oracle talked about its 12,000 ISV partners. IBM talked the open source community. Microsoft talked about its .NET community.
salesforce.com talked about its appexchange it generally released this week -- with 150 SaaS partners.
In the audience of many smaller vendors in at the conference , I asked a few about partnering with SAP or Oracle or Microsoft. Many are encouraged - but one invoked Hasso Plattner's speech a few years at another industry event "If our partners cross us, we will crush them into dust". Another pointed out problems Oracle had with its partners as it tried vertical application suites for various industries in the 90s.
So if there is more emphasis on enlightened v. self-interest, the industry may indeed be getting better about partner ecosystems and communities.
