Cognitive Dissonance: Are you a technology or a service?

One of the trends I’ve observed over the past several years is that more and more technology entrepreneurs are starting service-delivery business. By services businesses, I’m referring to the category of businesses that some venture investors refer to as technology-enabled services

One of the trends I’ve observed over the past several years is that more and more technology entrepreneurs are starting service-delivery business. By services businesses, I’m referring to the category of businesses that some venture investors refer to as technology-enabled services (“TES”). We atMeritageprefer the term network-enabled services (“NES”), which we think more accurately demonstrates the fundamental innovation in the business model, which is that there is a high-level of connectivity between the service delivery platform and the customer. Services is a big tent, so to ground it, put your mind on business models like SaaS, cloud computing, and even search.

Many casually refer to these businesses as “technology companies”, by which most intend Wikipedia’s definition of“information technology”, not thegeneric definition of “technology“. After all, these businesses create technology to build their service, right? Salesforce.com is a technology company; Yahoo! is a technology company; Akamai is a technology company …; AT&T is a technology company. Whoa! Hold it right there; rightous indignation time; I can hear it already.

Continues @ http://www.cloudave.com