Podcast: RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte

As a predominantly hosted-CRM (customer relationship management) vendor, Gianforte talked about the key differences between RightNow and Salesforce.com.

But the common link between the rivals is the on-demand model. "It's my view that over the next five to seven years, this [on-demand] will become the predominant consumption method for enterprise applications. The economics are so beneficial to customers. It's five times faster at 80 percent less cost," he said.

One "problem" in the software industry, Gianforte said, is what he described as companies' "odd fetish for technology". To listen to the podcast, please click "target="_blank" class="c-regularLink" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">here [3.2MB].

Gianforte believes another big trend is the intersection between on-demand software and open source. "We're the largest user of MySQL. Our products aren't open source but we use open source as a delivery platform ... ultimately, MySQL will be the demise of Oracle," he said.

Please click "target="_blank" class="c-regularLink" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">here [1.9MB] to listen to the second part of this podcast.