If 2008 is remembered as the year that a new generation of on-demand services, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing, gained widespread acceptance and accelerated adoption, then I think 2009 will be the time when winning channel partners will become more critical to the on-demand service providers.

Until now, SaaS and cloud computing vendors have been focusing on building reliable and scalable service solutions and demonstrating the viability of their on-demand alternatives to customers.

Now, that they have generally achieved this objective, their next challenge is to build an effective indirect go-to-market strategy and set of strong channel relationships, so they can rapidly and profitably extend their market reach and satisfy the needs of specific market segments.

The need to build a successful channel strategy has become even more essential as a result of the current economic crisis which is placing greater financial … Read More »

In its continuing effort to outpace its competition, Salesforce.com unveiled a new “SOA as a service” strategy today.

This is the company’s latest attempt to extend its footprint across the software landscape and increase its relevance to a wider population of users, developers and partners. This move also offers another clue for how established independent (read: incumbent) software vendors (ISVs) can better position themselves in the rapidly evolving Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market.

(By coincidence, IBM kicked off its IMPACT 2007 user conference today by spotlighting its software and services aimed at the $160 billion SOA opportunity.)

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has become a popular software development framework aimed at making applications more responsive to business requirements. Although the hype regarding the benefits and market acceptance of SOA far exceeds the reality, there is little debate that the proper implementation of SOA can generate meaningful returns … Read More »