Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Steven Levy, CEO of Verivo Software (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The point is that even if you are trying to build an enterprise software developer network around your platform, it is still a different strategy from selling the platform to enterprises for them to use and build their own apps. We are definitely seeing a trend from a lot of technology companies trying to build platform ecosystems. It is happening everywhere. We are seeing in the big data world, the mobile world – there are lots of mobile platforms that do certain things well, just as you do enterprise applications well with connectors, data management, and authentication management. There are all sorts of platforms out there. The business of developing platform ecosystems is a major trend. If you want to have 1,000 customers developing applications on your platform, it is going to require a certain amount of investment and a certain strategy. My assessment is that you are selling your platform directly to enterprises.

Steven Levy: Yes. But we have three-pronged strategy, selling to enterprises. In many of those cases the enterprises that are building the apps are doing it through their SI partners, which almost all of them are using. So we are working with the SI partners very closely. The ISEs that we are working with are typically ISEs that have a web-based or legacy service bureau piece of software and they want to build a mobile component to it. They may drop that in at their customers’ side or the service bureau. We are typically not finding people picking up our software on an ISE basis to build a mobile app without having that legacy system. We do have a substantial effort to work with ISEs, but not people whose business is the mobile app. It is where the mobile app is an extension.

SM: You are absolutely right. There are a lot of legacy architecture systems that are a small piece of applications that cater to specific verticals or business areas and that need to be moved to a more modern architecture with mobile capabilities. In many genres of applications – whether it is cloud, big data, mobile, or social – there is quite a bit of movement going on right now. Some of the platforms that you and some others are bringing to bear are going to assist in that movement.

SL: I agree with you. The key here is that there is a legacy component to what we are talking about. If I was to build a brand new app, I would not use our platform. There is no need.

SM: The Apple and Android ecosystems are pretty much able to tackle. I think what you are pointing out is that there is a completely different and enhanced set of needs of enterprise applications, which is where there are more gaps and there is a lot more work to do.

SL: I have started a previous company called MacGregor. That company provided an order management system to asset management organizations. They had portfolio managers and traders using our software to do their day-to-day jobs. If MacGregor wanted to build a mobile component to their offering, it would be a great fit for what we do because they could integrate with the existing installations of the MacGregor application and create a mobile app that integrates very cleanly in multiple systems.

SM: That is very interesting. Thank you for your time.

SL: Thank you.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Steven Levy, CEO of Verivo Software
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