I had the privilege of visiting Copenhagen, Denmark, for the first time this past week to give keynote presentations at ComputerWorld’s Top 100 Award ceremony and the first Hosting Day Conference held in the city. I also met with an assortment of local cloud computing entrepreneurs and a variety of established players pursuing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) opportunities in the Nordic region.

I was invited to participate in these events by Anders Trolle-Schultz, the founder of SaaS-it Consult Ltd. and organizer of the Hosting Day conference. I knew little about Anders or his consulting business when I sent him an email in June to congratulate him on publishing a terrific column in the Sandhill Group newsletter, entitled “Software as a Service: It’s About the Business Model, Stupid!”

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Anders was a fan of my writings as well, and was flattered when he invited me to participate in his hosting event. Having organized and participated in many industry conferences, I was really impressed by the quality of the speakers and attendees which he brought together in a very short timeframe.

What I quickly learned is that Anders is at the center of a growing ‘ecosystem’ of hosting, SaaS and cloud computing companies in the Nordic region. He is also very well-connected with many of the major global players as well, as the conference agenda and my weeklong schedule of one-on-one meetings he set up illustrated.

In fact, Anders—and his colleague Vagn Kohler—have built SaaS-it Consult business based on their “passion for partnerships”, helping vendors, resellers, hosting companies and others combine forces to deliver “Services Built on Technology” (SBoT)—Anders’ pet phraseology.

Anders, Vagn and I became quick friends this week because we share a similar passion for helping organizations overcome the business challenges associated with migrating from product-centric to services-driven technology solutions.

The visit to Copenhagen reminded me of my previous visits to Dublin where I had helped to organize two, one-day symposiums regarding the emerging SaaS market in 2006-2007. The participants in this week’s hosting event in Copenhagen were trying to decipher the realities about the cloud computing market in the same ways that the ISVs at the Dublin events were trying to understand the SaaS market.

While many in Denmark speak English and everyone drives on the right-side of the road as we do in the U.S., they don’t share the same conviction and enthusiasm of a growing number of American decision-makers that cloud computing is an increasingly attractive and viable alternative to traditional, on-premise software and systems. Instead, the Danes doubt cloud computing will be accepted by mainstream businesses and government agencies until regulatory, reliability, security and scalability concerns are fully addressed.

But, even more importantly, they are skeptical about whether the major hardware and software vendors will adequately revamp their licensing and pricing structures to permit true SaaS and cloud computing to become a widespread reality.
 
While my talk and others during the Hosting Day succeeded in clarifying much of the confusion among the conference attendees regarding the definition of cloud computing, it didn’t rid them of their concerns about the resistance they face convincing IT and business decision-makers of the viability of cloud computing alternatives.

They were also nearly unanimous in their dislike of the term ‘cloud computing’ itself. They all agreed that this term creates too much needless confusion and unfounded fears among corporate decision-makers. As a result, the selling process gets bogged down in technical issues rather than focusing on the business benefits.

The Hosting Day did succeed in bringing together over 60 regional representatives who agreed to establish an informal group, or ‘community’, to encourage ongoing discussions about industry best practices and challenges.

I also had a series of one-on-one meetings choreographed by Anders and Vagn with various vendors, resellers and entrepreneurs trying to determine how to position themselves in the market.

One session with a local entrepreneur generated some interesting ideas about how hosting companies could combine forces to circumvent the nationalistic policies which make it difficult for SaaS and cloud computing vendors to deliver pan-European services in a cost-effective fashion.

Anders, Vagn and SaaS-it will be driving these initiatives, and I’m pleased to be supporting their efforts. I also hope to return the favor and introduce them to my contacts in the U.S. who could benefit from their perspectives regarding the European market in general and effective channel strategies in particular.

Contact me if you’d like to learn more about my trip or would like to meet Anders.

cloud computing SaaS Software-as-a-Service