Trailing last weeks unconfirmed announcement of a back-door in Crowd, Atlassian (the shining star of the Sydney enterprise software scene) this week sent out a security advisory for their identity and access management product, Crowd. Please update to the latest version to get some security fix goodness.
Here’s a direct link to the security advisory:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CROWD/Crowd+Security+Advisory+2013-07-16
I believe there are many chaegns that have allowed companies like Atlassian and 37signals to be successful without a sales team. Including the adoption and awareness of marketing automation, the inbound marketing techniques for lead generation and the ability to test drive technology before you buy (be commercial open source models, freemium models or 30 day software trials). As consumers become more comfortable buying technology products, software and apps without speaking to a sales rep, they are comfortable buying enterprise technology products, software and apps without talking to a sales rep. For a business it comes to a basic marketing principal, Who is your customer? . If they are comfortable buying online without talking to sales (they have an iPhone, iPad, Android phone, etc) you may not need sales. If they are never going to write a check without talking to a sales rep (misses Circuit City, still shops at Best Buy). I think sales reps can in most cases improve revenue for a company, but sales is Secondary in importance to building an awesome product that helps solve a problem or is an improvement to an existing solution (faster, cheaper better). It is much more satisfying and easier to sell and market an excellent product/solution than an good, okay or bad one.