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BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #5: Build Employee Software. Employees are now powerful customers, not just their managers! We’re witnessing the “Consumerization of Software” so focus on ease of use.

The gig is up. Pandora’s box is open. Your customers all now know that software doesn’t have to suck anymore. They use rich internet applications including Facebook and Skype to communicate with their friends; they use LinkedIn to manage their business networks, Google or Wikipedia/Wikia to find accurate online content, Yelp to find restaurants, and Travelocity to book flights. Your potential customers are now looking for similar “cheap and cheerful” products in a violent revolt against the years of oppression by the likes of SAP and Oracle.

Products will now see rapid adoption by virtue of being intuitive, aesthetically appealing, and dynamic as opposed to deep and complex. Customers no longer require you to capture every use case or business need in your product, and they’re willing to forgo considerable flexibility in return for rapid on-boarding, progressive discovery, and context-sensitive help.

Individual employees and mid-level managers can now take out their corporate credit card and expense products, and are becoming direct consumers in the process. The best possible way to land a large enterprise customer is to call up the CIO and say “we’re excited by how much you like our product and were surprised to note that we now have several hundred users of our product within your corporation. We wondered if you were interested in rolling these into an enterprise license with the administrative dashboard, integration to your other systems, coordinated billing and provisioning?” Many Cloud companies are doing this with great success.

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We believe Cloud Computing is the most important trend in the software industry of the decade. We have been fortunate to work with many of the early pioneers in this high growth market segment, and continue to invest actively to grow our current portfolio.

Adam Fisher joined Bessemer in 2007 as a Partner. Based in the Larchmont office, he focuses on the firm’s Israel-related investments in both the U.S. and Israel. Adam is Bessemer’s first partner to be dedicated to Israel, where the firm has made a number of investments, including ART (acquired by Scansoft, now Nuance

 BroadSoft is the leading provider of service delivery and creation systems for next generation communication networks.

Byron Deeter is a Partner in BVP's Menlo Park office after having previously been a successful entrepreneur, investor, and consultant. At Bessemer, he focuses on  investments in the software,  Software as a Service (SaaS) , Internet, and gaming sectors.  Most recently, Byron was an executive at IBM, as a result of

Cornerstone OnDemand provides a comprehensive suite of talent management solutions for learning, performance, compensation, succession and compliance management to meet the human resource development needs of business and education .

Counterpane Systems is a data security monitoring service that monitors the firewalls and intrusion detection products protecting corporate networks.

Cyota is the leading player in the anti-fraud space, specializing in financial institutions. It specializes in fraud related to the Internet, such as online banking fraud, eCommerce fraud and phishing. In December 2005, Cyota was acquired by RSA Security (NASDAQ:RSAS).

David Cowan joined Bessemer in 1992. Of his 45 early-stage investments, 18 were acquired and 19 went public.

Eloqua is the industry leader in demand generation applications.

Endeca's innovative search and navigation platform provides unprecedented online data exploration that exposes the full richness and potential of online information.

Intacct provides on demand accounting, business and financial management applications over the web using a Software As A Service model.

Intego's software products protect the Macintosh computers of more than a million users in 60 countries from the dangers of the Internet.

Jeremy is a Partner with Bessemer Venture Partners. He focuses primarily on software and services investments. Prior to joining BVP in 2001, Jeremy was Vice President of Operations at Dash, an Internet software publisher. Jeremy joined Dash from AEA Investors, a private equity firm with an expertise in leveraged an

 In 1997 BVP's David Cowan led the Series A round in Keynote, a provider of Internet performance data and diagnostic services. The company went public in 1999 as NASDAQ KEYN.

 The nation's first ID theft protection company.

A business networking Internet site.

The first company to offer a service that reliably and transparently enables global sub second response time to Web enabled applications through Internet Optimization providing LAN like performance over WANs. It was acquired by Akamai (NASDAQ AKAM)in 2007.

Parallels is a global leader in virtualization and automation software that helps consumers, businesses, and service providers optimize their use of technology. The company's software powers more than 130,000 servers and 650,000 desktops worldwide.

 Perimeter provides comprehensive, on-demand messaging and security services to thousands of businesses.

Philippe Botteri is a Senior Associate in BVP’s Menlo Park office. Working primarily with Byron Deeter, he focuses on the enterprise software and internet sectors. Most recently, Philippe was a senior engagement manager at McKinsey & Co.’s high-tech practice in Silicon Valley, where he focused in the software,

Postini provides email security and management for the enterprise. BVP's David Cowan invested in the company's later rounds and served on the board. In July 2007, Postini was acquired by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

 PSINet was the first venture backed Internet Service Provider in the world. BVP's David Cowan and Felda Hardymon invested in its early rounds starting in 1993. PSINet went public in May 1995 as NASDAQ PSIX.

Register.com provides domain name registration and related Internet services. BVP's David Cowan invested in the company in 1999 it went public as NASDAQ RCOM the following year.

The leading RFID analytics and applications company.

 SelectMinds helps its clients build relationships among their employees, alumni, and other key constituents.

Stephen Bluestein is a Senior Associate in BVP’s New York office. He works with Bob Goodman, focusing on opportunities in software, communications, and healthcare IT. He serves on the board of  Ziff David Enterprise  and is closely involved with the firm’s investments in  GTS Central Europe ,  Syncsort , and  Netsmart

Storwize provides a unique, transparent, real time storage compression solution that dramatically boosts available storage space.

 Telocity was an early provider of residential broadband internet service provider. BVP's David Cowan co led the first venture round in 1998. Telocity went public as NASDAQ TLCT on March 31, 2001 (the last IPO of the dotcom era). Hughes'

 Trevor Oelschig is a Senior Associate in BVP’s New York office. He works with Rob Stavis, focusing on opportunities in software, consumer technologies, and digital and mobile media. Prior to BVP, Trevor was an Associate with Panorama Capital (previously JPMorgan

Trigo creates enterprise software solutions for Product Information Management. In 2004, IBM (NYSE IBM) acquired the company.

VeriSign is the leading provider of trusted infrastructure services. David Cowan co-founded the company in 1995 as a spin-out from RSA, and served as VeriSign's initial Chairman and CFO. The company went public in 1998 (NASDAQ:VRSN).

 Wix allows anyone to create stunning flash content anywhere on the web.