If you consult a thesaurus for words to describe "asymmetry," you will find the following: "Lack of smoothness or regularity: crookedness, inequality, irregularity, jaggedness, roughness, unevenness."

For startup and emerging independent software vendors (ISVs) seeking to win on the 21st century software market landscape, it is such asymmetry or jaggedness that must increasingly become the starting point for marketing strategy development.

Here are 10 manifestations of this market asymmetry that should be on the radar of all software marketers seeking to effectively compete in the 21st century software industry.

1. The 21st century software industry is a superpower-dominated market landscape

Today's software marketers must plan for the permanent reality of high concentrations of cross-category market power in the hands of a select contingent of market superpowers.

Microsoft, the superpower poster child, spans desktop, server, Web portal, handheld, gaming, security, and other formerly standalone categories. Oracle spans multiple categories, from database and application server infrastructure to dozens of enterprise applications. eBay, the superpower of Web commerce, spans auctions, online retailing, payments, VOIP, and more.

This phenomenon of cross-category market power will only intensify.

2. Web-based "Automatic Update" product models optimize customer lock-in

Need a good example? How about Windows Update, in which platform, browser, and enhanced security capabilities are continuously delivered to both enterprise and consumer users, dynamically upgrading the Windows platform despite the multiyear lag time between the release of Windows XP and the new Windows Vista.

Other superpowers are also adept at this software product marketing best practice: e.g., Symantec, which pioneered this approach with its anti-virus products. With this 'high touch' continuous update model driving software products, higher levels of multi-year customer loyalty and 'lock-in' are achievable.

3. Category market-share leaders are vulnerable to "regime change"

Today's software superpowers are not your father's market-share-leading "category gorillas." They possess cross-category, category-extensible market power that enables them to conduct ongoing "regime change" operations against incumbent market leaders. Oracle's M&A takeout of PeopleSoft and Siebel, eBay's takeout of PayPal and Skype, and Microsoft's classic campaigns against WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Novell Netware, and Netscape are representative examples.

4. Software superpowers are adept at co-opting disruptive technology innovation

IBM and Oracle have embraced Linux, once thought to be a disruptive innovation against incumbent leaders. Oracle, IBM, SAP, and Microsoft have all embraced the on-demand delivery model, similarly positioned by software-as-a-service pioneer Salesforce.com as the death knell for the superpowers. And Web 2.0 and the age of the advertising-sponsored application, largely identified with Google, are now openly embraced by Microsoft.

5. The Superpowers dramatically out-invest VCs in overall R&D/marketing spend

As every good TV detective says, "follow the money." The fiscal 2006 Microsoft R&D/marketing spend of $16 billion dollars is itself twice the total U.S. venture capital investment in all software and Web deals combined. Throw in other cross-category superpowers like Oracle, IBM, SAP, Symantec, Cisco, and others, and you can see the dimensions of the startup marketing challenge begin to emerge. And VC investment is spread across a thousand-plus deals, not concentrated on a single platform agenda, as the R&D/marketing spend of the superpowers.

6. Superpowers join forces to close emerging market gaps

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph E. Bentzel is the author of the new book, Asymmetric Marketing, Tossing the 'Chasm' in the Age of the Software Superpowers. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1419649809/ He is a marketing strategy consultant and the founder of Asymmetri Incorporated. Contact him at joe@asymmetri.com.