Next Phase of Vertical Software Depends on Depth

Broad industry support used to be enough to define vertical software. Solutions were designed to cover the common needs of the industry, and that was generally the expectation. That’s changed in two ways. First, the level of specificity. Supporting an industry at a high-level has reached its limits – the real differences show up in sub-industries and micro-verticals. A beverage producer, for example, operates with strict process, quality, and compliance requirements, and expects capabilities like lot traceability across raw ingredients, shelf-life, and quality management to be delivered built-in, but also configurable to meet their needs. Second, how customization is handled. It used to be acceptable – and often expected – for the customer to manage customizations through upgrades. Now,...