FAQ

Does your PR guy write the blog for you?
Heck no - you should be able to tell by the kindergarten quality writing. The blog is written by me.

What audience are you writing for?
A whole bunch of them, and that's what makes this an interesting exercise. Between my experience at Postini and Intacct, coupled with many more years at enterprise software companies, I'm starting to get a pretty good handle on what is unique about Software as a Service - so much of what I write will end up being about what is going on in the SaaS industry for folks who interested in SaaS and on-demand. I'm also writing for Intacct's clients and partners, as the financial applications industry and Intacct in particular are moving extremely fast and there is a tremendous amount of innovation going on. And given that I have some level of expertise in sales and marketing, I expect to write about things going on in those worlds for other sales and marketing professionals too.

Does this blog represent Intacct's official position?
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The legal answer is absolutely not. This blog represents my personal opinion about the industry and my own areas of interest. And since I think controversy is more important and interesting than pablum or marketing fluff, I will tend to take positions here that are significantly less nuanced than I would if I were speaking with an investor or journalist on behalf of the company.

But know that since I'm deeply involved in Intacct's strategy and operations:
(1) my personal opinion and Intacct's position are often the same,
(2) the further the subject matter is from Intacct's core business the more they may vary,
(3) the closer the subject matter to Intacct's business the more I have a de facto, pro-Intacct and clearly biased viewpoint.

Note that despite point 3, I want to make the blog an interesting and enjoyable and thoughtful read and don't want to turn it into a marketing fluff or a commercial. Feel free to call me out if you think I've gotten too commercial or preachy.

Will the blog always be factually correct?
The blog is a mix of opinion, personal experience and my recollection of historical facts. I assume that my opinions are not always correct, that my personal experience is jaded, and that my recollection of facts is fallible. So feel free to disagree with my opinions and feel free to let me know when you think I've gotten a fact wrong or interpreted things incorrectly. While I do not commit to any updates / revisions / corrections, I do try to do so when I'm convinced that I've made an error.

What's your comment policy?
I reserve the right to not allow comments, moderate comments, and delete comments. While I will try to be selective about when I invoke that right, I may feel the need to do so and thus delete or hide comments that I deem undesirable for any reason (e.g., flames, competitors seeking publicity, ad hominen attacks), or disallow them on any post.

You talk about company financials sometimes; are you a financial analyst?
No. I am not a financial analyst. I am a business executive analyzing the market and while I consider myself a pretty good finance guy, I am most certainly not a financial analyst. I include financial analysis when I think it's relevant to understanding a company or a market. I do not make buy and sell recommendations on stocks, people should not buy or sell stocks based on my analysis, and I may directly or indirectly hold positions in the companies I discuss.

Do you compete with the companies you discuss and analyze?
Some are competitors, some are partners and others are important in the ecosystem. There are only a handful of viable vendors of on-demand financial management and accounting systems: Intuit with QuickBooks online, NetBooks, NetSuite, and eventually SAP. And we don't compete with QuickBooks on-line or NetBooks. The real competition for us is the existing $10 billion market of on-premises financial applications - companies like Microsoft with Dynamics GP, Sage, Infor, Epicor, Lawson, Deltek and Softrax, plus 50 or more smaller firms. I affectionately call these on-premised accounting software folks "The dinosaurs of the software industry" since most of them haven't delivered any real innovation in years. See - that's a good example of my bias, referred to above, coming out. So while there are certainly times when I'm in pure market analysis mode, there are other times when I'm writing about markets and vendors who are closer to home and my biases will show.

Did you write this FAQ from scratch?
Heck no - I ripped it off from Dave Kellogg, the CEO of MarkLogic, who is a good friend from my business intelligence days. Dave's a very thoughtful and insightful guy - so go read his blog.