More on the Omniture Acquisition of Visual Sciences
We did our first Ask Semphonic Webinar this past week. I’ve done webinars before, and they are always a bit strange. As hard as these meeting software packages try, the feedback mechanisms still add up to something less than zero. So you always end up feeling like you are talking into outer space. On the other hand, this time there was a roomful of Semphonic folks – so it did sort of feel like we were talking to each other. Kind of. A little bit.
Like most first time experiences, it had its ups and downs. And I certainly learned a few things. We had a sound issue at the beginning – which managed to be both infuriating and comical. There’s nothing like having a whole bunch of people on a live chat simultaneously typing “I can’t hear anything – has the presentation started?” to make you feel stupid AND helpless.
I also learned that we had too many questions in advance – and probably too many people on the session. I thought everyone did a really nice job answering questions – and I got to play Moderator – which was a totally new experience for me. But we didn’t have enough time to answer every question we’d included in advance – much less the many questions we got online. And because we had a lot of people on the line, I didn’t feel like anybody got enough of a chance to talk to develop an individual point of view.
For the future, that means I think I will have fewer people on the line and many fewer (and broader) questions to begin with. We’ll try to include some general discussion up front to spark questions. And then rely on the online listeners to keep the discussion going.
I will say this: I sometimes listen to Sports Talk programs – Jim ("Have a take, don't suck") Rome and one of our local teams Tom Tolbert and Ralph Barbieri – and doing this first Ask Semphonic gave me a whole new appreciation for the art of what they do!
That being said, I think the concept proved itself promising and we’re certainly going to continue. Bearing in mind the web analytics mantra – continuous measurable improvement – I think we can refine the concept into something that works extremely well.
I’m also going to take a quick stab at MY answers to some of the questions we didn’t address and some of the questions we got online:
Will the Omniture Acquisition Drive up Costs? At least in the short run, I don’t think so. Transitioning systems is a classic drop-off point. If you are going to have the trouble of switching software you might as well switch to the system you like the best. So Omniture has a real incentive to make it attractive for companies to stay in the fold. I know both WebTrends and Coremetrics have put together very aggressive marketing plans and sales pitches designed to make it very cost-effective for HBX users to switch. So at least in the short run it may actually improve costs. Longer term, any time a significant competitor gets removed from the market it has the potential to increase costs. But between Unica, WebTrends, Coremetrics and GA there should be sufficient competition to keep the marketplace vibrant.
As an Omniture user, how will this affect me? This is a question that both Paul and Phil had pretty strong feelings about but which we didn’t get a chance to tackle. The effects seem likely to be two-fold. First, the acquisition of a large new customer base and the problems are transition are certainly a significant customer-support risk. No US web analytics company has a strong reputation when it comes to customer support. Everyone has grown too fast – and customer support is an industry-wide challenge (for people like Semphonic as well). I think that’s a worrisome factor. On the plus side, the desire to ease the transition path may make for some significant improvements in the SiteCatalyst world and in the broader analytic suite. If some of the best features of HBX make it over into SC (improvements to the Excel Integration, a reporting API, tagless Campaigns from Admin, etc.) it would definitely help make for an even better product.
How will Omniture invest in future R&D of HBX, Search and Visual Site? This is an issue I’ve written about before but there is a real diversity of opinion within Semphonic about the likely direction around Visual Site/Workstation and Discover. I don’t know about Search – that’s pretty much an independent product that I’d expect to be incorporated into the total suite. HBX will probably go away. But Visual – that’s a tricky question. On the one hand, Visual and Discover fulfill nearly identical functions (analyst workbench). On the other, they are dramatically different in look-and-feel and fairly different in capability. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the VS product offers a higher-level of capability. But I also believe that it does so at a significant complexity cost within the interface. That complexity cost is a real barrier in many companies. In addition, Platform 5 provides a license-based solution that can compete with companies like Unica that offer a much more natural platform for data integration than any SaS solution is ever likely to provide. How will Omniture sort it all out? Damned if I know. What’s my own preferred direction? I’d build a Discover interface on top of Platform 5 but include some of the most important VS capabilities in the new product (superior segment building, event and time handling). Hey, while I’m in dreamland, I wish they’d throw in a WebTrends' Score like product to boot!
Is the industry better or worse off in the wake of the acquisition? I think anytime you lose a significant player the industry as a whole is probably worse off. That doesn’t mean that many HBX users won’t be better off. My own view is that the VS Management Team had either through lack-of-interest or lack-of-ability allowed that part of their product line to stagnate. So I think many HBX users will be better served in this new configuration. I’m not so sure about the impact for Visual Site customers. To see how that plays out, you’d need to know how the answers to the question above will eventually shake out – and right now I doubt ANYONE – even people at Omniture and VS, really know the answers.
How does Google’s entry into the analytics arena affect Omniture's ability to sell into the SMB space or more specifically our ability to resell HBX into the SMB space? It’s going to hurt. In the SMB space, GA is very formidable entry indeed. Frankly, that’s competition I’d rather not have if I were reselling HBX page views (Semphonic doesn’t resell page views by the way – we try to be vendor neutral) into the SMB arena.
How much of the historical investment for existing HBX customers can be utilized in the migration to SiteCatalyst or will past technology investments effectively be written off in this migration? Tough question. Like any significant software migration, I’d expect to write-off a piece of my historical investment but by no means the whole. Here’s the good news. Technically, the implementation of these systems is quite similar. The core products are – if not sisters – at least cousins. The knowledge gained in administering and using one is HIGHLY portable to the other. On the whole, I think most companies will find that quite a large part of their historical investment will transfer relatively well to the Omniture world.
It seems that the industry is working towards a managed services model. What options will remain for those companies that prefer keep their data in-house for various reasons including security or cost? This is a huge issue. The industry HAS been moving to a Managed Service Model for at least the last four years. But in many ways, I think the trend is starting to swing back the other way. That’s a big part of the reason why I think the technology direction around Visual Site and Platform 5 is so uncertain. There is a real need for solutions outside the Managed Service Model and that’s a need that Omniture has not previously addressed. For many of our larger clients, data integration with INTERNAL data is probably the single most significant problem they face. And it’s an issue that SaS is always going to have challenges with – especially given the size and nature of the data we are talking about. That’s one of the reasons I’d very much like to see Omniture continue the Platform 5 direction. I’d also like to see Unica continue to grow in this direction – and maybe focus on high-end clients with data integration needs. Plus, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see enterprise clients who are struggling with this issue move increasingly into BI/Statistical Analysis tools for web analytics. There are real difficulties with that approach – but real benefits as well.
Will the lack of a true database in both the Omniture and VS products hurt their adoption by enterprise customers who demand an SOA architecture? Yes, I think so. Though it is perfectly possible to have a SOA architecture without a true database. That being said, I’ve always felt that the single biggest attraction to a product like Unica’s is that it is built on an open database platform. There are many, many advantages to this approach. Of course, that being said, the fundamental question remains – can you achieve the performance you need without a specialized architecture. That’s not a question answered theoretically but only in the real-world.
Can you cover some strong reasons to STAY on HBX, versus switching to another solution like WebTrends or Core? I’m not sure I have reasons for staying with HBX except insofar as that’s where you are until you migrate to SiteCatalyst. So I think the real question is whether you should plan on migrating to SiteCatalyst/Omniture or to another company like WebTrends, Unica or Coremetrics. There certainly are many good reasons for taking the Omniture migration path: clear industry leader, robust suite of tools, very compatible implementation and GUI to existing HBX experience, new capabilities like Discover, etc. Does that mean it’s a slam dunk? No - though I think it will be the most common path. You need to use your experiences with HBX to think about appropriate direction going forward. Each of these products (plus GA) has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. I talked more extensively about this in an earlier post that I’ll just reference here!
I think that's about as much as anyone should be expected to read! I wish we could have given you the some other team perspectives on these questions - but if you want that I guess you'll have to do it the old fashioned way and read their blogs!
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