David Abramowski

Nearly every web application that interacts with a user is faced with the dilemma of how to best support tablets and mobile devices.  As entrepreneurs we can no longer put off supporting these platforms as a nice to have.  The demand that is created by iPad users and the influx of Android tablets in the marketplace is significant especially for early stage companies.  Zoomstra is no different and we are currently facing our biggest technology decision yet.  What is our best option for supporting tablets? As a bootstrapped startup we have to make smart decisions on where we spend our time and money on development efforts.  We don’t have a big pot of sweet smelling VC cash to dip into for these projects. But this is good.  It makes us think hard and invest in only those areas that will drive revenue and keep our customers happy month after month. Our challenge at the ... (more)

Make Customer On-Boarding Easy as Paint-by-Numbers for Cloud Services

First color all the ones with yellow.  Then move onto the twos in blue and the threes in black.  In just a few minutes you are making progress towards having all the little numbered areas filled.  You take a break, step back and are amazed at what YOU are creating..it’s a portrait of the Mona Lisa and it looks darn good. As a kid with his first paint by numbers kit, you were given all the materials you needed as well as the guidance on how to get the job done.  You didn’t have to go to five stores, go hunt down a brush, or go to an 8 hour off-site to get trained on the history o... (more)

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac Roars with OS X Lion

Parallels Desktop 7 takes support for OS X Lion beyond the typical QA testing of a newly supported platform. Parallels went several steps further in their new release integrating with the key features of the new OS X user experience including Launchpad, Mission Control and Lion Animations, all to simplify the experience for the user who wants to run Windows applications on their Mac. Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that at the end of July Apple released the latest version of the Mac operating system called OS X Lion. This new operating system was the eighth major r... (more)

Souper Frustrations – SaaS and the Grocery Store Dilemma

Remember the last time you went to a grocery store that you were unfamiliar with?  Remember how frustrating it can be and how much time it can take to find the simplest of items?   You roam around the aisles wandering with your eyes rapidly moving between the category signs and the items on the shelves.  You don’t quite understand why that can of chicken stock you are looking for isn’t in the soup aisle.  Finally you find that chicken stock in a special section next to the spices four aisles away.  Frustrating right? That grocery store chain has spent thousands upon thousands of d... (more)

Cloud Computing and the Disruption of the Sales Cycle

In the golden age of Enterprise software sales, one of the last things an enterprise sales rep wants to do is hand over  software to a prospect. This was mainly driven by the fact that sales reps don’t want the prospect to “twiddle” with the software before they know how to guide the prospect to a decision that put money in their pockets.  As a member of these types of sales teams for more than a decade, I recall that we all lived by the creed that giving access to the software too early can result in a disaster, a lost deal and missing quota. One of my favorite memories that ex... (more)