Cloud-Based Application Platform and PaaS by LongJump

James Maguire over at Datamation listed his seven top cloud computing acquisition targets: companies that are “desirable choices” for the “giants” of the industry. Among his targets, Maguire includes IaaS provider GoGrid, cloud enabler Enomaly, storage service provider Vaultscape, cloud manager RightScale, virtualization appliance provider AppZero, application manager Elastra, and our very own application platform LongJump.

It’s an interesting “fantasy league” piece and we find it more flattering than serious about being a target. After all, it is nice to be desired or at least desirable.

And he offers on one of the more concise descriptions of LongJump we’ve seen in awhile:

Among other uses, Longjump is leveraged by developers who want to bring to market an extensive multi-tenant application, without building their own platform. (Think, for instance, of the way that Salesforce’s Force.com offers a development platform.) So ISVs and other service providers can use Longjump to sell SaaS offerings.

In other words, Longjump is a Platform-as-a-Server (PaaS) provider. Or, more accurately – warning, here comes deep jargon – it’s an APaaS, an application-platform-as-a-service play. This is because the Longjump solution offers a virtualized application development platform.

While there is nothing wrong with a bigger company using over the right technology to make a mass push, there isn’t that much acquisition activity lately in the cloud space that we’ve seen. Part of the reason may be that many of the larger players are looking at the entire cloud market, and will likely play in the traditional parts of cloud computing first. The first acquisitions will likely be in the infrastructure based virtualization and management solutions or point solutions that fill a gap, then the platforms. But because a platform like LongJump has such broad appeal with ISVs and enterprises alike, we have just as strong a chance at making an impact through partnerships and deals as we would through being acquired.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, datamation, isv, james maguire, multitenancy, PaaS, saas, software-as-a-service

LongJump CEO Pankaj Malviya was in San Francisco last week for a video shoot. We won’t go into details about what we were shooting, but we do think the video will go a long way to articulating our vision and value proposition for the LongJump platform.

We feel like our product is starting to take off. Besides being named a Cool Vendor from Gartner, many doors have opened in the recent months and it is clear that the LongJump platform’s ability to quickly enable companies to build their SaaS application business has a real, recognized value. There also seems to be a real trend for companies who have made a point to start building applications on the cloud, don’t want to go rebuild from scratch. Everyone we talk to lately seems to see that LongJump changes the development cycle with a multitenant application platform that enables faster application creating, less wheel reinvention, and greater control over applications deployed to your customers.

The video will be available some time in August. Look for it!

Technorati Tags: cloud, enterprise applications, pankaj malviya, saas, software-as-a-service

The recording from last week’s webinar on Developing and Deploying SaaS Applications featuring MySQL and SIMCO Electronics is now available. The webinar discussed many aspects of building a SaaS business including how to get to market faster without significantly adding a lot of investment and resources. It also discussed many aspects of readying SaaS applications in the public cloud as well as on-premise and private clouds.

The webinar covers the complete application lifecycle for a SaaS deployment including:

• Data Modeling and Application Development
• Test and Release Processes
• Deployment into Public and Private Clouds
• Publishing and Version Management
• Partner Enablement and Ecosystem Building
• Platform and Application Upgrades
• Establishing Application Portability
• Billing and Tenant Support

To view the webinar, go to http://longjump.com/mysql. If you are not a MySQL registered user, you will have to sign up to view the recording.

Technorati Tags: application development, cloud computing, multitenancy, mysql, saas, simco, software-as-a-service, sun mic, sun microsystems, webinar

Our latest LongJump release (version 6.2) has hit the cloud with something desperately needed in today’s business application space: Flexibility and Visibility. Flexibility in the way that information is displayed and visibility into a deeper set of information and analysis. Many of today’s cloud applications come out of the gate serving a basic set of functions in a basic way. Rarely can the interface adapt to suit the needs of a wide array of users, and few can match LongJump’s depth in terms of features, scalability, and adaptability.

Over the course of the next week, we’re going to take in-depth looks at some of the big features that have been added like Digital Signatures, New Form Layouts, Object Inheritance, RSS/Atom Feed Report Publishing, and Data Snapshots.

Until then, be sure to check out our feature tour and the press release.

Technorati Tags: atom feed, cloud applications, digital signature, form processing, rss feed, snapshot data

LongJump will be a featured exhibitor at the Sun JavaOne conference this week at Moscone Center in San Francisco. We’re located in the Cloud Zone at Booth 511. Be sure to stop by and say “Hello,” if you’re going to be there. We’ll be demoing some new upcoming business and developer functionality that we think really changes the game when it comes to web-based application platforms.

The Pavilion hours are:

• Monday – 3PM to 7PM (with a Reception from 6 to 7PM)
• Tuesday – 11:30AM to 7:30PM (with a Reception from 6 to 7PM)
• Wednesday – 10AM to 4:30PM
• Thursday – 10AM to 2PM

We also have 2 free full conference passes (worth $2000 each) that we will give away to the first two people who sign up for a free trial account. Just go to our registration page and for “How did you hear about us” type in “JavaOne Blog Post.” Sorry! Only the first two responders can get the passes.

If you are late to the game, you can always sign up for the Pavilion Only pass at the JavaOne Registration page.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, developers, java, javaone, sun

Yesterday featured a nice article from Chad Berndtson of Computer Reseller News on their ChannelWeb blog about LongJump’s BAP. Chad spoke with company Chairman Rick McEachern about the impedous for the platform and the growing need for software producers to want to privately build, brand, deliver and control SaaS applications.

“We thought midsize ISVs between $40 million and $200 million would be the sweet spot,” (McEachern) said. “But we find ISVs whose companies are well over $1 billion coming to us, too. It’s very interesting that it spans the very small to the very large. What they’re saying to us is: ‘Basically, what you’re telling me is you’ve got Salesforce in a box and we can private label it?’ Well, that’s not really our message, but essentially, yes, it’s that. It’s OK with us if you want to put it in those terms.”

The complete article is available on the ChannelWeb site.

Technorati Tags: application development, developers, isv, on-premise, saas, software-as-a-service

LongJump today announced that The David Allen Company, renowned experts in personal and organizational productivity, including David Allen’s decade-long bestseller Getting Things Done and the more recent Making It All Work books as well as many public and private coaching session and seminars, has selected LongJump’s Business Applications Platform to manage its business development and resource management operations for the company.

Before we made our selection, we evaluated several vendors, including some well-known competitors to LongJump.  We felt that not only did LongJump go the extra mile to understand our unique business needs, but they also provided the most flexible application platform to address the complex business needs of an entrepreneurial company with global mindshare.  The functionality of their offering helped us realize the vision of how to optimize our business processes over time. We’re looking forward to a long and successful relationship with LongJump.
- Robert Peake, CIO of The David Allen Company

You can read the complete press release here.

Technorati Tags: custom applications, david allen, getting things done, gtd, PaaS, situational applications

As many of you know, LongJump.com uses MySQL Enterprise Edition as our backend database. Like many, we chose it for its scalability, refined support and performance-for-value business case.

Sun Microsystem’s MySQL has invited us to present a case study for rapidly building SaaS applications. Enterprises and ISVs acknowledge the trend toward SaaS and many are looking for cost effective ways to SaaS-enable their applications, their processes and their business models to enable greater efficiency and collaboration. However, the best path to developing SaaS applications still remains uncharted.

This webinar will feature Brian Gerhold, Director of Engineering at Simco Electronics and Pankaj Malviya, Founder/CEO of LongJump. In this presentation we’ll examine how Simco’s development team built a next-generation SaaS application which automated data collection, reporting and compliance leveraging MySQL and the LongJump development platform.

Brain will discuss how Simco approached common SaaS application development problems and the solutions that lead to their success.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can accelerate the development and deployment of MySQL-backed multi-tenant SaaS applications, in your data center, hosted environments or in the cloud, this webinar is for you.

• Thursday, June 11, 2009: 13:00 (1PM) Pacific time
• The presentation will be approximately 45 minutes long followed by Q&A

To take part in this webinar, sign up here.

Technorati Tags: developers, isv, mysql, saas, simco, sun microsystems

If you happen to be in Vegas in the coming weeks, you may want to stop by Mandalay Bay where our very own CEO Pankaj Malviya is taking part in a discussion panel at Interop Las Vegas on May 19th @ 2:45PM. The session is being hosted by Jeffery Kaplan, Founder and Managing Director at THINKstrategies. Jeffery has also covered LongJump before in a recent article. According to organizers, the panel shall discuss:

Hosted applications vary from the specific to the adaptable. At one end of the spectrum are websites with one purpose; at the other, open platforms that let you build your own applications. Navigating the landscape of on-demand applications can be a challenge — should you choose one comprehensive application suite, or best-of-breed portals? Do you need off-the-shelf functionality, or limitless flexibility? This session presents a taxonomy of on-demand applications so you can choose what works for your business.

Also participating in the discussion are:

Technorati Tags: interop, jeffrey kaplan, on-demand, PaaS, saas

Gartner analysts Yefim V. Natis and Robert P. Desisto produced the first comprehensive research note on LongJump’s Business Applications Platform with some key insight for those looking to take advantage of online and on-premises based PaaS. They take an honest look at the opportunities and challenges we face with our platform, but are buoyed by our current success so far.

LongJump is starting this expansion on a promising note — even at this early stage, it is already referencing two ISV customers poised to go to production with their applications, built on LongJump BAP.

Yefim and Robert also did an excellent job summarizing how to choose the right platform for the goals of your business:

The company took this direction in response to requests from prospects, and, in doing so, responded to the reality of the multiple patterns and reasons why organizations choose cloud-style application platforms:

• Many small and midsize user organizations and small ISVs are attracted to productivity and low cost of the cloud platform development (these prospects are served by the LongJump On-Demand service offering).
• Many large user organizations are attracted to the productivity of the cloud application platform environment, but insist that their data must remain on-premises (these prospects will be best-served by the single-tenant version of the new LongJump BAP).
• Many large ISVs wish to offer business applications as a service, but demand full in-house control and ownership of the underlying application platform (these prospects will be best-served by the multitenant version of the LongJump BAP).
• Some large user organizations are looking to build private cloud services in-house (these prospects also will be best-served by the multitenant version of the LongJump BAP).

Ultimately, while we know we have a golden product on our hand and that there is a real market need, our own execution will determine our level of success. So far, however, the signs are positive.

Gartner subscribers can log in and read the complete report here.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, gartner, multitenancy, PaaS, Platform-as-a-Service, saas