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What framework or platform is commonly used to develop enterprise software?

I would also like some reference materials on how to sell such software.

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Platform and framework are unimportant except in ensuring that there will be acceptance on grounds of usability, deployability and security and other compliance. The real issue is if you solve a problem well and if it can scale. – TimJ♦ May 3 '10 at 13:47
that's actually a very good point... but i was just wondering at the moral dillema. isn't it up to the enterprise software vendor to produce enterprise software using industry accepted platforms or framework ? – gasdg May 8 '10 at 7:55
Interesting read - how to sell your software for $20,000 - nukemanbill.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/… – Ryan Jun 26 '12 at 7:18

5 Answers

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Common enterprise software is mainly developed in JavaEE or .NET frameworks, although surprisingly Ruby is gaining some traction in the enterprise space.

Because of the complexity involved in enterprise software, these tools provide APIs for security, scalability and manageability.

Selling enterprise software is tough. It has a long sale cycle, however, the advent of SaaS has made it a lot easier. If you are selling Saas, you need to be good at marketing.

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Surprisingly? Why so? – NewAlexandria Sep 30 '12 at 2:49
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Why do you start with Enterprise? If you are interested in business software -- start with small business and learn from there. The difference between the two are:

  1. less features
  2. less liability
  3. cheaper to sell (yep)
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well i would like to focus on dealing with less customers...i've run a few SaaS in the past, and it's extremely stressful dealing with just 100 customers paying 20 bucks a month....i'd rather deal with 10 customer who pays 200 bucks a month rather than deal with the remaining 90.....i hope this makes sense – gasdg May 8 '10 at 7:53
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I run a site with thousands of users. Once I notice a trend that requires my attention, I focus on automating the task or re-writing/adding functionality that will solve the issue. More customers means more exposure and in a long run will let you scale your business faster. Once you reach a critical mass of the offerings you can spawn the Enterprise branch. Hopefully by then some of your small business clients will be ready to scale up too. – usabilitest May 8 '10 at 15:52
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They are 2 big separate questions. Using frameworks is always faster and safer but you might need to build your own APIs and maybe frameworks too and I think if you are asking about how to develop enterprise software, it is too early to think about selling it.

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yes, but i want to learn both sides....what is the best way to learn ? – gasdg May 8 '10 at 7:56
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Great question.

I think more importantly than the technology platform, do you know any solid developer(s)?

I would suggest using whichever platform that you or your trusted developer is most familiar with (assuming it's something mainstream like Rails, J2EE, Python/Django, PHP...)

This will help you move fast, which is very important.

These days, it's not so much about which platform is better, it's really how you actually use it.

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No matter which kind of software, the very first step to market software online is submitting software to as many as download sites or directories as possible. As it is time-consuming, you may use a paid submission tool for sumitting your software to download sites.

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