After chairing last week’s Cloud World conference in San Francisco last week, I’m pleased to be serving as the chairman of the Cloud Futures for Software Vendors Conference taking place in San Jose, CA, this October 5 – 6.
 
This event is for established software vendors who are attempting to overcome the challenges associated with migrating to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing model so they can capitalize on this rapidly growing market.
 
The conference will include speakers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Forrester Research and Cloud Security Alliance, along with presentations by representatives of many leading vendors in the SaaS and cloud computing industry, including Amazon Web Services, IBM, Salesforce.com, LiveOps, Callidus Software, Enomaly and others.
 
Our goal is to help software vendors achieve:

CLOUD ECO-SYSTEM EXCELLENCE: Identify the partners you need to get your SaaS off the ground … Read More »

A combination of work, travel and summertime distractions have prevented me from commenting on a series of small, yet significant announcements and activities over the past couple of weeks in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing market.

My latest travels started last week at Pacific Crest’s 11th Annual Technology Leadership Forum in Vail, CO, where I met with a series of the investment firm’s ‘buy-side’ clients as a part of its Mosaic program, and interacted with a variety of cloud computing executives and VCs in a SaaS workshop.

Nearly all of Pacific Crest’s clients are concerned about the financial implications of the cloud computing movement on their large-cap investments in companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP on the software side, and IBM, HP, EMC, Dell and other systems vendors on the hardware side. They are also curious about whether Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors and other upstart SaaS/cloud companies can … Read More »

Making the transition to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model isn’t easy for incumbent software vendors (ISVs).

Rearchitecting their applications may be the easiest task in the transformation process. Redesigning their go-to-market strategies and ongoing operations; restructuring their revenue recognition models; and reorienting their staff are the more difficult challenges.

Greater service delivery costs combined with lower per unit prices make it is easy to see why most ISVs have tried to resist the SaaS movement and denied its long-term viability.

Yet, a severe slowdown in traditional, packaged, ‘legacy’ application sales has made it imperative for ISVs of all sizes across every segment of the software industry to finally accept SaaS as a reality they can no longer ignore and must finally embrace.

Even Microsoft, Oracle or SAP are promising ‘cloud’ solutions and cranking up their PR machines to promote their promises. But, their SaaS offerings are still primarily hosted versions … Read More »

Last week, Gartner attempted to derail the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) movement by issuing a press release regarding its latest customer survey which found that SaaS users are “underwhelmed by their current experience of it and sense that SaaS is not quite the panacea it often promised to be.”

For some reason, it took Gartner more than six months to interpret the results of its survey of users and prospects of SaaS solutions in 333 enterprises in the U.S. and the U.K. which was conducted in December 2008. Maybe because the data didn’t say what they were hoping and it took more time to twist the results into a story that fit their reality and could generate a few headlines.

Gartner’s press release starts by stating that “SaaS is more mainstream and less controversial than ever before”, an important admission from a research firm which a few … Read More »

Much has been written regarding Google’s latest challenge to Microsoft–its announcement last week that it plans to unveil a new operating system (OS) in the second half of 2010.

There is no question that Google’s ambitious plans can have a significant impact on the computing world. And, because computing has become an integral part of everyone’s day-to-day world, the Google-Microsoft war deserves plenty of attention, even in the mainstream media and among Main Street businesses.

However, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Google would move in this direction. It has been nibbling away at the edges of Microsoft’s fortress for a number of years.

Google Desktop does a better job finding files within Micrsoft Office than Microsoft’s own software. Gmail is easier to use than Outlook. And, Google Apps have become a viable alternative to Microsoft Office within a growing number of businesses, non-profit agencies and governmental … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Book4Time Inc. has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program.

The BoSS Award program is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)  and cloud computing companies. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Book4Time offers an enterprise-class, SaaS solution for managing real-time reservations, online bookings and spa management for the leisure and lifestyle industry.

Click here to read about business benefits of Book4Time’s web-based, on-demand solution.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards or to submit an application for an award.

No, I haven’t gone over to the darkside and abandoned the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) movement.

But, I just gave a keynote presentation regarding the state of the SaaS and cloud computing market at SoftLetter’s latest SaaS University in Chicago, where the challenges of developing and delivering successful SaaS solutions were once again brought home in the discussions among the software executives and SaaS professionals attending the event.

Despite it being scheduled on the last day of the quarter and first week of many people’s summer vacation, the event succeeded in attracting about 70 CXOs from a cross-section of established independent software vendors (ISVs) and SaaS start-ups seeking insights about how to succeed in this rapidly growing industry.

Like past SaaS University sessions, the attendees were treated to a variety of tutorials from industry practitioners with a minimum … Read More »

This was the title of one of my first commentaries for ITworld’s old Utility Computing portal back on January 14, 2004. I had to laugh when I saw a blog post today with the same title on GigaOm’s site regarding a panel session about Private Clouds during this week’s Structure ’09 conference.

My original commentary focused on the hesitancy among the major technology vendors to adopt a services-driven strategy that would capitalize on the rapidly evolving Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services capabilities which were emerging in 2004.

Based on the summary in the GigaOm blog post, it appears that the Private Cloud panel focused on all the reasons why enterprise IT shops have been slow to fulfill their roles as internal service providers.

Of course, the irony is that many of the vendors represented on the panel have encouraged their IT customers to be more focused on managing technology than … Read More »

LucidEra’s decision to close its doors this past Friday will spark a new round of debate regarding the viability of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing business models.

Some established vendors will use this event as further proof that the SaaS and cloud computing models are not sustainable. Conservative IT and business decision-makers within ‘user’ organizations will use it to justify their decisions to stay away from these ‘on-demand’ solutions.

Ironically, the Wall Street Journal published an article today highlighting the growing efforts of many of the largest software and systems vendors to get onboard the on-demand services bandwagon. The article points out that these vendors have been reluctant to adopt SaaS and cloud computing strategies and offer on-demand alternatives because they undercut the value and profit margins of their legacy products. But, their customers are moving in this direction and they must respond or continue to lose … Read More »

I had the privilege of attending a local forum at Bentley University hosted by Intuit this past week entitled “Startups and the Cloud: Entrepreneurship in the Age of Cloud Computing”. 

The size of the turnout for this event was another indication of the growing level of interest in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the broader cloud computing phenomenon. It may also be an early indicator of the potential power of Intuit as a key player in this rapidly evolving marketplace.

In a previous blog post, I suggested that two of the most important competitive advantages which leading Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) must display are,

Sustainability in today’s tough economic climate to ensure they are viewed as solid, long-term suppliers of SaaS development and delivery capabilities.
An attractive customer base which can make the PaaS vendor a viable channel to market for developers leveraging its toolkit.

Intuit easily qualifies as a potentially powerful PaaS … Read More »