May 2020

As Forrest Gump might say, “Platform is as platform does.” Pandium, a fascinating kind of app-marketplace-as-a-service company, released a State of Product Integrations at the SaaS 1000 report this week. They examined integrations, public APIs, and “app centers” offered by the 1,000 fastest growing SaaS companies from 2019. Their analysis provides empirical evidence for two truths: Nearly every SaaS company now integrates with other SaaS companies in the cloud. For the SaaS 1000, the median …

Proof of platform: SaaS companies have a median of 15 integrations each — app platforms have 500+ Continue Reading »

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about 3 Trends Driving the Second Golden Age of Martech: Ecosystems, Experts, and (Citizen) Engineers. These are the big themes that I believe will shape the next decade of marketing technology: Ecosystems — instead of marketing cloud suites vs. best-of-breed point solutions, we will have the best of both: open platforms that serve as stable foundations, augmented by large ecosystems of specialized third-party apps that are …

How platform dynamics explain The Second Golden Age of Martech Continue Reading »

Last month, I published the latest marketing technology landscape. It grew yet again, defying many a pundit’s prior prediction, swelling to 8,000 martech solutions. Upon its release, two things immediately happened: A bunch of people insisted it would consolidate dramatically. A bunch of companies emailed me to complain they weren’t included. The irony of those two competing narratives flooding my inbox at the same time — which I’ve witnessed every year for the past decade …

Platform dynamics driving martech app expansion and consolidation explained in one (relatively) simple model Continue Reading »

Okay, there aren’t really going to be 500 million martech apps by 2023. And if there were, we certainly wouldn’t attempt to map them in a martech landscape. (Crikey, that’s a nightmare that will haunt me in the dark of night.) But according to IDC in their IT Industry 2020 Predictions, “over 500 million digital apps and services will be developed and deployed using cloud native approaches” by 2023. 500 million. Let that sink in. …

Forget the Martech 5000. Try the Martech 500 Million. Continue Reading »