With the New Year’s festivities behind us, it is time for me to offer some of my views about cloud computing trends in the coming year. Although I remain a firm believer and full-time proponent of the fundamental value of cloud computing, I think cloud computing vendors and their customers will face significant challenges in 2010 and beyond.

Here are the key challenges which I think must be addressed to clearly demonstrate that cloud computing is a viable alternative or adjunct to traditional, on-premise applications and data center operations.

Deliver strategic value in addition to measurable cost-savings. Much of the initial success of today’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings has been driven by their commodity prices. Going forward, IaaS and other cloud vendors must deliver additional value to survive more intense price competition.
Move core business operations to the Cloud. This migration process is already underway, but must become more routine. Rather than … Read More »

As 2009 comes to an end and a fresh round of snow blankets the Boston area, I’ve found myself reflecting on the past decade with varying emotions.

Here’s a random list of some of the ways the tech industry and our world has changed over the past ten years,

We’ve moved from concerns about Y2k to learning how to cope with Gen-Y, or the Millennials.
The failed ideas about Application Service Providers (ASPs) have bred a new generation of far more successful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors.
The overly complex and exceedingly costly concept of ‘utility computing’ has given way to the incredibly exciting and far more cost-effective possibilities of ‘cloud computing’.
Despite concerns about an over-saturation of ‘dark’ fiber, the proliferation of broadband networks has made the ubiquitous web and social networking possible.
Vmail and email have been supplanted by text and Twitter.
Netscape has been replaced by … Read More »

Since 2009 is coming to a close, I thought it would be a good time to review how I did with my predictions for the year regarding the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing market.

1. On-Demand Services Move From Why To How

According to a Sandhill.com/McKinsey survey of over 850 enterprise customers at the end of 2008, 74% were already favorably disposed to adopting SaaS platforms. As a result, Gartner estimates the SaaS market will have reached approximately $8 billion at the end of 2009, a 21.9% rise from $6.6 billion in 2008. Looks like folks have moved past “why” SaaS to “how” to get the most out of their SaaS deployments.

2. New Hybrid Models

The idea of hybrid SaaS and cloud computing models has been abhorred by industry purists, but the reality is that nearly every business will rely on a combination of on-premise and on-demand resources. In 2009, the concept of “location independence” became bi-directional. … Read More »

One of the primary concerns among IT and business decision-makers regarding cloud computing, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), is potential security problems. Yet, most enterprises are facing an uphill battle trying to keep their own operations secure.

The latest illustration of this point is today’s Wall Street Journal story claiming that the FBI is investigating a potential security breach within Citigroup that may have resulted in the theft of millions of dollars by a Russian cyber gang. While Citigroup is denying that its computers were compromised and that there is an investigation underway, the story is a clear reminder that no one is safe from hackers intent on attacking a specific target.

Therefore, cloud computing vendors are no more vulnerable and are not necessarily less secure than enterprises. In fact, if the lack of published stories about security infringements among cloud computing vendors is a good indicator, then these vendors have actually proven to be … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that LiveOps has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. 

The BoSS Awards program was launched in January 2009 to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

LiveOps On-Demand Contact Center Platform applies the benefits of cloud computing to the contact center, enabling enterprises to rapidly deploy a scalable contact center infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis to achieve greater operational and cost efficiencies.

Click here to read about LiveOps’ award-winning on-demand contact center capabilities.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that ProfitKeeper has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards.
 
The BoSS Awards program is aimed at bringing attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

ProfitKeeper is a leading provider of SaaS-based financial tools for franchisors, affiliate groups, organizations and their members and franchisees. Its web-based, back-office solutions give users a way to simplify accounting activities while providing real-time graphs and reports for tracking and analyzing profitability.

Click here to read about the business benefits which ProfitKeeper has generated for its customers.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards program or to apply for an award.

While others are looking ahead to 2010, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the major events in 2009 which many have an important impact on the future direction of the SaaS and cloud computing industry.

Click here to see which events made my top ten list.

THINKstrategies announced today that Pervasive Software (NASDAQ: PVSW) has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. 

The BoSS Awards program was initiated in January 2009 by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Pervasive Software helps companies optimize their data investments through embeddable data management, agile data integration software and by enabling next-generation analytics. Pervasive’s data integration platform accelerates the sharing of information between multiple data stores, applications, and hosted business systems across a broad range of diverse integration … Read More »

I had the privilege of serving as the chairman and ‘master-of-ceremonies’ at this week’s CloudFutures conference for ISVs migrating to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in San Jose, CA.

The event succeeded in drawing over one-hundred attendees seeking to better understand the complexities associated with leveraging the rapidly growing array of cloud computing services to develop and deliver SaaS solutions.

While this number may not seem significant, it was exactly the scale of event that I expected given the time of year and proliferation of cloud-oriented conferences. It was also an ideal size to delve into many of the thorny issues surrounding SaaS and allow the attendees to freely interact with the speakers, as well as one another.

In many ways the event resembled the SoftLetter SaaS University sessions where I’ve served as a keynote speaker and sponsor. While I’m still a big supporter of those … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Ultimate Software has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Ultimate Software is a provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions. The company’s SaaS-based UltiPro solution helps businesses streamline their human capital management (HCM) operations without relying on internal IT resources, or worrying about hardware procurement, installation, upgrades, and maintenance, while enabling them to better control the most critical HR and payroll functions.

Click here to read about the business benefits generated by … Read More »