This is another in my catch-up series (first post here) – and I’m slow in getting a second one out. About three weeks ago Phil and I wrote three posts about SightSpeed’s new partnership with Dell where SightSpeed is providing the infrastructure for Dell Video Chat. In my second post I discussed the role CxO’s play in bringing business to technology. This triggered SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy to write a post: Speculation about SightSpeed’s Partnership Success – "How Do They Do It?" Peter talks about other partnerships SightSpeed has built over the past five years:
It may surprise many folks that we also have long established partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Ask.com, Creative, VTEL, Ezonics and others, as well as long-standing relationships with major media companies like Viacom (MTV and Nickelodeon) and Disney (ABC News).
and goes on to talk about how SightSpeed powered, for MTV, the first Internet video and webcam infrastructure that allowed home viewers to participate live on-the-air. More recently we have seen Skype’s High Quality Video being used by Oprah to do live interviews from homes and other remote locations.
But more importantly Peter goes on to discuss four key factors in successful partnering:
- You must be best in class period
- You must be flexible, open and standards-based
- You must be built to partner, partnership friendly and partnership proven
- You must have the right team and passion
No argument with the first and last. With respect to the second, while the past decade has opened up new worlds, through technology development, for partnering, the technology business world is still learning the balancing act where it can be open and where it can effectively use proprietary technology. Bottom line to me with any communications service is "can I easily make the connection and have a conversation that is transparent to the technology?"
With respect to the third, I can now talk in retrospect from experience in my Quarterdeck days. QEMM was architected as one interlinked software "blob" such that we missed many OEM opportunities for potential partners who wanted what amounted to an API to only a few individual features. Architecting software for partnership has become a fundamental business development criteria. But partnership is also about building business partnerships where the "rules of the game" are adequately defined and agreed upon, where business standards, in addition to technology standards, are established and met and where successful execution happens almost spontaneously.
Read Peter’s post in its entirety; lots of experience and lessons that can help everyone in today’s highly interwoven technology businesses.
(Photo taken during a meeting with Peter at CES 2008)
Tags: SightSpeed, Peter Csathy, Skype High Quality Video, QEMM, MTV, Oprah, partnerships, business development
Powered by Qumana
No comments yet.