This week’s NCAA college basketball championship between Duke and Butler University offered plenty of life lessons for everyone, including the software and technology industry.

I took particular interest in the game because my oldest son is a sophomore at Butler which became the center of attention because of the ‘feel-good’ story surrounding the school. For anyone who isn’t aware of the dynamics that made the Duke-Butler championship special and didn’t see the game, it was a classic Cinderella and ‘David and Goliath’ story wrapped into one.

Duke is a pre-eminent basketball power with a long history of success on the national stage that has enabled the school to spend lavishly to attract elite ballplayers for decades. Butler is a respectable but little known ‘mid-major’ program which most people viewed as an unlikely challenger because the college is a fraction of the size of the top basketball institutions, spends less than 1/15 as much on its basketball program as Duke, and had never been past the ‘Sweet 16’ round of the tournament.

Despite its smaller stature, financially and physically, Butler reached the finals with a series of inspirational wins over higher ranked teams. Butler’s successful run was particularly poignant because of the way it won each game with poise, determination and intelligence which demonstrated a level of maturity and confidence combined with dignity and respect which is seldom seen among athletes of any age.

That same persona was on display again in the championship game which Butler nearly won, missing a couple shots in the final seconds by inches. Although most athletes will reject the idea of ‘moral victories’, Butler’s gallant efforts set a new standard for sportsmanship among athletes at all levels. It also gave other small schools greater confidence that they can compete with major institutions. Even more importantly, Butler’s story rekindled people’s faith and support of the ‘little guy’.

The analogy in the software and technology industry is the way that a new generation of small yet quickly growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing companies are going toe-to-toe with the established vendors to win customers and disrupt the status quo. These upstarts are gaining traction because they are working harder than the established players to develop and deliver solutions which satisfy customers’ rapidly changing needs and expectations.

Today’s SaaS and cloud computing providers may not win every head-to-head battle, but they are winning the hearts and minds of IT and business decision-makers, and letting the established players know that they are in for a real battle, just like Butler demonstrated against Duke.

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