Our CEO, Pankaj Malviya, has been published on GigaOm recently discussing the how IT and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solutions can work hand in hand.
Below is the complete article:
The Long Tail of IT
Pankaj Malviya, June 25, 2008
Everyone who has worked in — or even with — an IT department knows that the demand for projects always exceeds IT’s ability to deliver them all. IT is able to address only those most highly prioritized, core business projects that receive the budget, staff and priority to develop, test, deliver and maintain over time. If projects don’t make the “A” list, the project either doesn’t get done or workers have to find a way to do it themselves.
Today’s more tech-savvy, Web 2.0 workforce has increasingly resorted to getting the tools it needs from SaaS software providers. In an ideal world, IT must be an active partner in prescribing technology to help the rest of the business work better together, move information efficiently, and get the answers needed to make the next strategic or tactical decisions. This is what the Long Tail of IT is all about: really important IT automation projects that would help the business but that consistently don’t make the list of must-do projects.
The platform-as-a-service evolution that is starting to emerge (for example, with solutions from Amazon, Google and LongJump) is one that has potential to restore the luster of the IT department, because these solutions are focused on delivering “customized, situational applications” that connect to a range of common and uncommon processes.
Platform-as-a-service provides a turnkey environment to build applications that teams can use to share data and collaborate. There is no infrastructure to install, and the time and cost to build, deploy and customize new applications is greatly reduced.
PaaS solutions should also be able to integrate with other sources of data using simple web-services APIs. Connecting to enterprise data sources securely is fundamental. Additionally, customization is extremely important; applications that are created must meet the unique requirements of businesses. PaaS should provide a visual way to create new forms, model and automate processes and workflows, and implement actionable data policies.
Rather than needing to work with a one-size-fits-all application (and an extensive, dedicated IT architecture), PaaS platforms need to be able to draw from functional domain experts from Marketing to Sales to HR to easily customize applications, or quickly create and publish situational applications, that are better suited to their unique business requirements. The PaaS platforms also need to deliver enterprise-level service, security, and hardware and software architecture, as well as rich functionality for each application, ranging from configurable dashboard widgets to a flexible database architecture that enables extensive relationships between application data, search capabilities across all applications, etc.
PaaS’ rise is built upon need. The fact that PaaS is on demand and in the cloud is driven by the reality that IT isn’t able to support its multi-departmental constituents with a flexible business platform of information and collaboration. Information workers don’t have time to build a server, manage a database, design a UI, etc. PaaS offers a convenient, predictable, leverageable alternative to yesterday’s big IT initiatives.
That doesn’t mean IT is off the hook, however. In fact, PaaS needs IT to succeed. Not just to bless the technology around security and scalability issues, but to be the guiding light of information management:
How do you organize your data permissions?
What data needs to connect to other data to form applications?
Do the new applications meet required compliance standards for users’ data protection? What should that data and application look like?
How much is customer-facing, and how much is back-end?
What external systems need to connect to this data?
PaaS gives IT something it never had: the ability to manage the ‘I’ without the need for too much ‘T.’ No hardware to install; no database to optimize; no web servers to update. PaaS provides structured, centralized data and processes that are enterprise-agnostic. The focus is then realigned on the applications one can build and the business problems one can solve, not on the technology that built them.
It’s very clear that the infrustructure of web products and components is starting to consolidate into ready-to-go solutions from hosting, applications, and (like LongJump) complete enterprise application development plaforms.
According to Om Malik:
The platforms on which we have done business for over a decade are starting to provide diminishing returns; the smart money, meanwhile, is seeking new platform structures.
We completely agree with Om’s assessment. The time is certainly right for Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions like LongJump. With functionality on the web ever improving, the need to drive down operational costs always looming, the agility of a business a paramount importance, it’s only a matter of time for enterprises large and small to move some key areas of their business on the grid.
Gartner, the world’s leading IT research firm, recently released their list of Top 10 Technologies for 2008 that touched on a couple of SaaS-related technologies and trends. Those of you who follow our blog will recall the post I did last week on Software as a Service: Alphabet Soup were I examined some of the emerging terms and acronyms in the SaaS space. In their top 10 list, Gartner talks about the idea of SaaS-related Web Platforms (Web-Oriented Architecture or WOA) as one of the potential next big things.
What is WOA?
Depending on who you ask, WOA (Web-Oriented Architecture) is either SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) on steroids or a web-based “cloud computing” environment. Gartner sees them as “providing service-based access to infrastructure services, information, applications, and business processes”, while other’s like Nick Gall are simply using WOA to refer to SOA that uses a more modern and flexible XML protocol - REST (a less complex method of using XML to communicate with applications) as opposed to SOAP (an older, more complex approach to the same problem).
What about SaaS?
Enough tech-babble and back to business! Gartner points out that “Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming a viable option in more markets and companies must evaluate where service based delivery may provide value in 2008-2010,” and sees web platforms and the natural progression to SaaS. Along with the their previous projections, it looks like the next couple of years will mean good business for SaaS application providers!
Mashups, Composite Apps, and Social Software
Mashups and composite applications continue to enjoy the technology spotlight. For those unfamiliar with these terms, mashups actually come from the music industry and refers to applications that combine data from more than one source into a single application. Composite applications are similar, except they consume enterprise and enterprise-ready sources versus Internet-based sources. Gartner also sees consolidation in the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment (also known as Enterprise 2.0) and companies increasing buying social software and collaborative technologies, good news for companies playing in that space!
Conclusions
Its good to see Gartner continued support of the overall SaaS movement. Some of you old enough to remember know that Gartner has always been a proponent of cost-cutting through it support of technologies and services like network computing, outsourcing and most recently SaaS. Also encouraging is the appetite enterprise continue to have for Web 2.0 technologies and their ability to embrace SaaS as an acceptable software delivery model.
Large ISVs Will Spin Off On-Demand Versions of Products
Small and Medium Enterprises Remain a “Tough Nut to Crack”
Microsoft Strengthens SaaS Resolve
Software on Demand Providers Focus on Partnering
Mini-Ecosystems Emerge to Extend the Reach of SaaS
SaaS Enablers Continue to Aid Availability of On-Demand Offerings
Merger and Acquisition Activity Continues
SaaS Providers Concentrate on Improving Offerings and Customer Experience
Hosted Application Management Becomes a Stepping Stone Towards SaaS
SaaS Will Help Drive a Software Industry Transition to Subscription Licensing
Many of these seem obvious or mundane, for example the trend on the part of large software vendors (like Oracle and IBM) dabbling in SaaS products, constant talk about mergers, or Microsoft continued interest and rhetoric in the space, or all the crocodile tears being shed about the SME market and so fort and so on! There are a couple of the predictions, however, that I found rather interested and worthy of exploration:
SaaS Providers Concentrate on Improving Offerings and Customer Experience: One of the key differentiators here at LongJump as I see it, is our focus on customer service and user experience. Companies selling into the enterprise have traditionally been on the hook for providing either first-line or second-line customer support. This notion of customer support, however, is new to the many SaaS “Internet-come-lately’s,” after all they come from a background of free use and no support. But regardless of whether you are focused on the SME or enterprise marketing, customer support become extremely important once you start collecting money from people and this is something SaaS providers need to understand.
SaaS Will Help Drive a Software Industry Transition to Subscription Licensing: One of the traditional barriers to software sales has been the readiness of companies to buy into new pricing models. Although subscriptions are nothing new, subscription licensing for software in the enterprise is! I see traditional “enterprise-wide” per site, per CPU, per server, per seat and per user licensing is being replaced with more flexible by per user/month and storageper month type pricing or some combination of the two.
I recently ran across a great article on CIO magazine on Software as a Service (SaaS) usage statistics by application and by industry. Although the numbers behind the chart probably come from a more enterprise-centric sampling of companies, I think they are interesting and are probably a good indicator on some of the types of applications and markets SaaS platform providers should be focusing on. Gartner estimates that in 2005, 5% of all business software spending was for applications delivered using a Software as a Service (SaaS) model and it rightfully expected the figure to grow to 25% by 2011. Their most recent projections saw the worldwide SaaS market reached $6.3 billion in 2006 and forecasted it growing to $19.3 billion by the end of 2011.
It seems the only think more popular than software as service or on-demand applications in the language, acronyms and lingo associated with them. The purpose of this post is to try and decipher some of the buzzword and acronyms floating around in the area of Software as a Service (SaaS) so the next time you are at a dinner party and the subject comes up, you can impress your colleges with your obvious mastery of the subject area – after all, he who knows the most buzzwords wins!
Software as a Service (SaaS): Software as a Service is defined as a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops, hosts and operates a web application that is used by customers over the Internet. This is by far the most common, and in my opinion, the most accurate term used to describe software being delivered as a service.
On-Demand Software:
This is another term company used to refer to software as a service (SaaS). This term speaks to the benefit of SaaS (primarily the fact that SaaS application are available “on demand”). “On-demand applications” and “on-demand technology” are alternate versions of this term.
Application Service Provider (ASP): This is the grand daddy of SaaS terms! The Wikipedia defines an ASP as “business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network.” So SaaS companies are essentially using an ASP model to deliver their own applications (originally ASP were focused on providing a host of third party application through their service). It is also note-worthy to point out that not all ASP applications were web-based. The term ASP evolved from the more common term ISP (Internet Service Provider) and become popular in the late 90’s. Just goes to show you that SaaS is not as new a concept as many of us think!
Platform as a Service (PaaS): Term used by Salesforce.com to describe its new Force.com offering that enables businesses to create and run applications on-demand.
Mashups as a Service (Maas): Bloggers around the Web are using this term to refer to the “convergence of SOA with Web 2.0.”
There are a number of acronyms that sometimes get used when talking about SaaS that are worth being aware of. Most of these directly or indirectly relate to SaaS. These include:
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA): Key to SOA is the idea of build applications out of modular web-based software services (SOAP, XML-REST, WSDL, i.e.). The goal of SOA is build software that reuses modular “loosely coupled” web-services which each represent a chunk of functionality. SaaS application are NOT necessarily build on SOA, although some SaaS companies expose their API’s as services than CAN be leveraged by applications build on SOA. You will find that the technology community is very fond of using both words together as in: “SOA for SaaS” or “SOA meets SaaS”. (See Wikipedia)
Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP):
This term refers to a popular technology stack of open-source software used by a growing number of software developers to build and deliver applications. Not all SaaS are built on LAMP, but it is a popular and inexpensive platform for building and deploying SaaS applications. Other popular technology stack used to deploy SaaS applications include: Java/J2EE (used by SalesForce.com and LongJump for example) and Microsoft .NET.
Software and Service (Software + Service, SaaS 2):
Microsoft’s vision to migrate SaaS to the desktop. Although Microsoft is a proponent of SaaS, it’s roots and strengths obviously lie on the desktop. Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie describes this combination of desktop and SaaS with the following quote: “SaaS 1 meant the web; SaaS 2 has come to embrace the unique value of the client.”
Situated Web Application Platforms (SWAP):
A term that I like coined by blogger Pete Thomas used to refer to SaaS platforms such as LongJump. Although I have yet to find an actual definition of the term, I have started to see the term (or similar terms as as “Situated Applications”) being used and it sounds cool and very buzzward-ish!
I hope you find this list of SaaS related buzzwords useful and perhaps you can put them to good use at your next technology mixer or office party! Enjoy and I hope you get a SOA-enabled, SWAP-like, MaaS-infused, PaaS-capable, LAMP-powered, ASP-delivered on-demand SaaS platform for Christmas! There you have it - 100% buzzword compliant in 2008!
The term “Social Enterprise” has been floating around for some time. I am a big fan of “buzzwords” so obviously this is one I have followed. The “Social Enterprise” simply refers to the adoption of new social media technologies within the enterprise. Having been involved in past in helping “tame the Internet beast” for use within the enterprise at companies like Epicentric, I find this trend very exciting! The “Social Enterprise” is similar the notion of “Enterprise 2.0” but the former has a focus that the latter term lack – Social Media! Proponents of the “Social Enterprise” call attention to companies using social media technologies such as social networks, collaborations tools, blogs, RSS, syndication, wikis and social bookmarking internally as part of their business!
Alex Iskold of Read/Write Web (who is one of my favorite bloggers) recently did a great post titled “The Social Enterprise - What Works, and What Doesn’t” that looks at the reasons for the social enterprise. It focuses on the need for both agility and self-organization within the enterprise. Alex makes points out that “…with the increasing speed at which our society operates, we are seeing that companies have had to become more agile in order to compete.”
LongJump and the Social Enterprise
The LongJump application platform is very much about increasing the speed of business. LongJump enables the rapid use and adoption of businesses application within small and medium-size organization as well as groups within the enterprise. Some of the core application on the platform, such as OfficeSpace and Customer Manager, were designed to enable collaboration and self-organization. Components like discussions and document sharing enable user-generated content within the enterprise to be shared quickly and openly in a secure environment.
Levels of the Social Enterprise: Technology + Business + Network At its core, the LongJump platform embraces the idea of sharing and collaboration by building key application on top of common data and application components. Data, such as contacts, company and other internal business objects can easily be accessed and shared among applications at a technology level. For example, the Sales force automation application leverages the contact manager, task manager and email.
Additional, applications like OfficeSpace, enable collaboration and sharing at a business level. So business concepts like relationships (vendor, employee, i.e.) and transactions (invoice, payables, i.e.) have a common understanding throughout the platform and can be shared and used between applications.
The way the LongJump platform integrates and interacts with external applications also speaks to its spirit of networking and integration at a network level. By providing the ability to openly and easily interact with external application and resources (Website integration to collect sales or job leads for example), LongJump essentially enables collaboration with external applications as well.
Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland has been a big believer in the “Webification” of small and mid-sized businesses. Webification is about making it easier for small business to establish and expand their a web presence. I have spoke with Mike in the past about trends in the small business space and shared with him what I saw as the three stages of Webification.
Web Presence Services focused on establishing a web presence for small businesses and helping them distribute information.
Web Commerce E-commerce application focused on selling products and services.
Web Applications Back-office applications that help businesses improve productivity, efficiency and cut cost.
LongJump is very much about meeting the needs of small businesses in the areas of web applications. Most business today, both big and small, have already solved their web presence problem! Others have made progress in enabling web commerce (selling products or services) on their sites or through third parties, but only recently have small businesses began to focus on leveraging web applications to take their business to the next level. I talked about this in my previous post on LongJump and Enterprise 2.0 Evolution were I conclude that:
By making Web 2.0 technologies accessible to small and medium-sized business from a cost, value and time-to-market perspective, LongJump is trying to deliver on some of the business benefits of Enterprise 2.0.
If you are looking to cut your operating costs, open source may seems as a viable option but here are a couple of things small business should consider when evaluating such a decision. Open source software generally refers to software that is available (usually in binary and source code form) at “no cost” to the user. Although a broad range of software is available as open source, consider the following:
Open Source Does Not Mean “Software as Service” Open source simple means the software itself is available at no cost. The software still needs to be installed, deployed and maintained – which is usually the real cost associated with any business software service. Many small business simply don’t have the time or resources to host and maintain complicated business applications.
The Quality of Open Source Software Varies The quality of open software varies from package to package. Because most open source applications are built by unpaid volunteers, bug fixes or complex features are sometimes not a priority. Most small business are better off using a reliable, world-class business application suite they can depend on.
Understand the “Hidden Cost” Associated with Open Source
Installation, support, integration and customization are the real costs behind running and maintaining business application. An all-inclusive services like LongJump removes these “hidden cost” from the equation and delivers business application functionality at an affordable and predictable cost.
While open source maybe an options when it comes to desktop applications, business applications require a level of reliability, security, performance and quality that is best delivered through a world-class enterprise-grade business application platform.
When SalesForce launched a couple up years ago they came up with a cute marketing campaign called “Just say no to software”. At LongJump we have twist on that statement: Just Say “Know” to Software! A lot of business simply don’t know the true cost and benefit associated with the services that they use. Where are a couple of things to take a look at:
Know Your Cost: Cost is always important, especially for small businesses. Many solution promises to be a complete turnkey package, but usually this “one size fits them all” promise is a mirage – hence the need for customization or integration. This is where the real “hidden” cost comes in. Because LongJump is focused on enabling codeless customization, applications can be customized effortless by customers themselves. Key components of core application also come pre-integrated, eliminating additional integration cost.
Know Your Service: A lot of online services come without support or provide minimalistic online support. Support is important and shouldn’t be overlooked. LongJump, on the other hand, is committed to providing world-class support to its business customers. We provide online customer and technical support via our support link and are committed to responding immediately to your support needs during business hours with a resolution (or explanation) of the issue within two business days!
Know Your Upgrade Path: Before using any service, it is always a good idea to understand your “upgrade path” and upgrade options. There is always some level of “lock-in” associated with using any online service so be sure you understand how a service can grow with your business.
