PaaS is still a game changer, but I really believe that PaaS companies need to have a stabilizer in order to survive. Selling an app platform is a touchy thing. It’s like selling ideas, not some canned product with a few extra options. You don’t walk into a Walmart and pick up an application platform and some milk. That’s because PaaS requires effort on the part of the buyer — an investment of thought, ingenuity and energy at a time when budgets are in the dumper.

If you don’t have a second source of income or a VC sugar daddy who is in it for the long haul, you will see things like this — essentially a failed marriage between funding and business model.

As a competitor, I can truly say that Coghead was a pretty good platform. What they were able to do with public widgets was impressive and their outreach to ISVs definitely filled a market void. But it was starting up as a platform company, not a solution company and any inroad into serious businesses requires real application solutions that capture the power of the platform.

If someone were looking to put their eggs into a platform-as-a-service for a solution, they should take a look at the company itself and make sure it’s viable. Otherwise, yes, there is a risk. Even the heavily touted Salesforce.com has it’s own traditional revenue stream to offset the costs of a PaaS push and their platform is also a risk to lock-in, customer ownership, etc.

We’re proud to say that LongJump has never raised a dime of VC funding, we’re a profitable operation thanks to not firing up all engines all the time, a suitable other line of business in both Relationals and LongJump.com, and we’re making hey with our platform play by listening to customers tell us what they need. And we shall continue to strive by making the platform meet the needs of the businesses it intends to serve, not the other way around.

“Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’”