November 14th, 2008
Can SaaS save Etelos?
Etolos, which survived the dot-bomb as an enterprise Web application distributor outfit, hopes to survive the latest recession by moving to SaaS.
Founder Danny Kolke signed back on just last month, re-worked the Web site, and re-launched the company this week.
Unfortunately he is not coming to a happy little start-up, but a public company that is being chatted up on penny stock boards. Shares fell off a cliff around Halloween (along with everything else) so his work is cut out for him.
Maybe some buzzwords will help. Move your apps to the cloud. Go after Microsoft. Getting the new SaaS model out the door quickly certainly helped.
But this is a different mission, trying to save something rather than trying to build something. There are people out there who can both get the plane in the air and keep it from crashing into the mountain, but they are rare.
If Kolke succeeds he will definitely have “made his bones” as an executive, not just an entrepreneur. I wish him luck.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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