Building enterprise focused startups that dont suck

This article is bullshit. It suggests the Enterprise Software and its associated Sales can be fixed by changing the vendor's behaviour. But historically vendors became the way they are because of their large, slow, complex inefficient clients.

Also, open source is not a game changer. Proof: it's been around a while, and nothing's changed. It's just a new checkbox ("feature") that the client demands. Sure open source is great, but I know from experience that it doesn't fundamentally affect this situation.

IMHO, the "bottom-up" approach is the game-changer in the enterprise market.

With the freemium model, software can be basically given to the user; then, ASSUMING you have a strong product, that person will become your promoter within the organization. Get to the CIO through that user, if they are not enough keep building critical mass. Eventually the CIO will listen.

Right now, the enterprise has mis-alignment with the buyer and the user. Whatever can be done to bring that into proper alignment will in the end benefit the user.