Recently the question of B2B software’s sexiness became a meme on the Internet. We asked one of our clients, StackSafe to blog about it. Here’s Jonah Paransky, vice president of marketing at StackSafe, on how they will endeavor to use DEMO ’08 as a platform to introduce virtualized testing and staging solutions to the IT market.

Demo 2008 – The Technology Launch Venue of Choice

You’ve got a B-to-B software product and you want to launch it. But where?

On our corporate blog, I recently discussed the debate over whether business-to-business marketing is “sexy.” This was in response to a number of responses to Robert Scoble claiming that “Enterprise Software Isn’t Sexy” on his blog. In that post, I focused on product management as a way to understand the market – sexy or not.

At StackSafe we have been facing this problem as we identified a venue to roll out our flagship product, StackSafe Test Center. Among the limitations we have been dealing with are (importantly) the timeline for when we would go to market and the fact that we are a B-to-B software product company. The word “launch” sounds very exciting and active. The phrase “B-to-B” does not – at least in the online marketing world.

In any event, we think we have found a way to launch our product and still generate excitement and market recognition. We were honored to be selected to launch at DEMO 08. Demo is one of those special venues that is designed for the launch of new technologies into the marketplace. It brings recognition and buzz and is the perfect counterpoint to my original post.

Jon Fortt of the Big Tech Blog puts it well:

At the end of January, some of the freshest new ideas in tech will be on display at DEMO, an invitation-only gathering outside Palm Springs. There, veteran tech analyst Chris Shipley stages the tech biz version of Survivor, where a closely guarded roster of innovative startups (and a few big companies) gets a few minutes to demonstrate a breakthrough new product or service in front of an elite audience of venture capitalists and corporate kingmakers.

But we still have a challenge, even though we have a venue. Enterprise software products don’t always present well. Their complexity and “niche-ness” does not always translate well to the DEMO format in 6-minute live demonstrations. Also many of the other DEMO participants are consumer focused organizations with easy-to-relate value propositions and pitches.

At StackSafe, we are focusing our presentation on the significant problem in IT Operations we are working to solve – and how StackSafe Test Center provides an easy to install, easy to use solution to that problem with a clear and recognizable ROI. It won’t be a laser light show, but we hope people will understand just how large the problem is and how simple our solution is. If so, then I’d say that’s pretty “sexy.”

For those interested in the reality of the DEMO 08 conference from the perspective of a participant, we will cover it through twitter and through additional DEMO 08 focused blog posts on the StackSafe Corporate Blog – IT’s About Uptime.

Also, if you are going to attend please take advantage of a $600 DEMO registration discount.