The year of the Cloud has come to a climax at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco where over 30,000 registrants converged to celebrate the rapidly expanding world of ‘on-demand’ solutions and collaboration tools.

Salesforce.com used the event to beat back the recent efforts of Oracle and Microsoft to gain a share of the Cloud Computing market with a new round of initiatives aimed at building on its phenomenal momentum and success.

The two most significant announcements on Day One were Salesforce.com’s offer of free Chatter accounts across its customer base along with a public version of the social networking service in February, and a new Database.com offering as a spin out of its Force.com Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Day Two began with the news that Salesforce.com plans to acquire the Open Source oriented, Ruby-based application development platform, Heroku, for $212 million in cash. Salesforce.com and BMC Software also announced that … Read More »

Few technology trends have captured as much popular attention as Cloud Computing. The level of hype associated with the ‘Cloud’ hasn’t been seen since the hoopla created during the Dot.com era. As a result, there has been plenty of debate about whether the Cloud Computing phenomenon is headed to a similar demise.

Of course, I can point to plenty of proof-points which clearly demonstrate the differences between the false promises of the Dot.com era and the tangible benefits of today’s Cloud Computing solutions. However, the recent Comcast outage raises an even more serious concern — are businesses moving to a far less reliable operating platform when they turn to Cloud services to support their corporate operations?

I was confronted with a similar question after giving a keynote presentation at the Connecticut Venture Group’s Software Industry 2010 meeting. A member of the audience suggested that the rapid adoption … Read More »

Organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry are putting aside their legacy, on-premise applications in favor of a new generation of Web-based, on-demand, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing alternatives.
 
This escalating trend is attracting a new breed of software providers and forcing established independent software vendors (ISVs), as well as in-house software developers, to re-think how they design, develop and deliver business applications.
 
THINKstrategies has published a whitepaper, on behalf of SoftServe, which examines how Cloud-based, SaaS applications differ from traditional on-premise software products, and how specialized software development firms can help ISVs and in-house developers meet users’ changing expectations and achieve their business objectives.
 
Click here to obtain a copy of THINKstrategies’ whitepaper. I hope you find it helpful.

Despite the growing examples of organizations gaining tangible and measurable business benefits from Cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions which THINKstrategies profiled in its recent report entitled, “Measuring the Business Benefits of Today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Solutions”, many corporate decision-makers remain apprehensive about adopting these Cloud-based services because of data privacy and security concerns.

Companies outside the U.S. are particularly concerned about using services delivered by U.S.-based providers because of the ominous language contained in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, commonly referred to as the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

This regulation appears to permit U.S. law enforcement agencies to unilaterally access private customer records stored on corporate servers worldwide if they are suspected of holding data which could pertain to terrorist threats or other criminal activity. These fears have made organizations especially hesitant to consider SaaS-based … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) OnDemand solution 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 is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is an intuitive, turnkey business intelligence solution that allows business people with no prior experience to explore, report and share information inside or outside the company.  Because it’s on demand, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand can be acquired and setup in minutes, without a long technology project.  It’s available standalone or can integrate with existing on-premise or on-demand investments, delivering improved productivity and greater insight for more informed decision-making.

Click here … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Bill.com 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 is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Bill.com is a leading provider of a SaaS-based, paperless bill management and payment solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and CPA firms. Bill.com users can receive, route and pay invoices electronically with multiple options including PayPal and e-payments.Invoices can be emailed, scanned or faxed into Bill.com, and relevant information is automatically integrated into the Bill.com system. Digital images of invoices are then routed electronically for approval, ensuring a complete audit trail and eliminating lost or mishandled paper.

Click … Read More »

Two announcements on the same day this week vividly illustrated the scalability and ubiquity of today’s Cloud Computing phenomenon. They also showed the diversity of users seeking to take advantage of Cloud Computing services.

The first was Amazon’s announcement that it is offering a free usage tier of its Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Block Store, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and AWS data transfer services for new users for a full year. 

Amazon Web Services’ (AWS)  innovative and groundbreaking approach to packaging, pricing and delivering computing power has been the primary impetus and standard bearer of the Cloud Computing movement. Its commodity and even spot-pricing techniques have captured the attention of entrepreneurs and enterprises alike.

UBS Securities estimates that Amazon will generate $500 million in 2010 and $750 million in 2011, making it the largest Cloud vendor by far with minimal marketing effort. Yet, this still only … Read More »

Yesterday’s announcement that Ray Ozzie is retiring from Microsoft is newsworthy because he has been at the heart of the company’s efforts to keep pace with the rapidly evolving Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and broader Cloud Computing movement.

Ozzie joined Microsoft when his company, Groove Networks, was acquired in 2005. Groove was an independent software vendor (ISV) trying to commercialize the groupware ideas which Ozzie had pioneered with Lotus Notes.

Around the same time as the acquisition, Bill Gates warned Microsoft’s employees of the far-reaching implications of the coming “Internet Tidal Wave” in an infamous internal memo which quickly became public and stated,

“This coming ‘services wave’ will be very disruptive…Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses.”

Ozzie issued his own memo warning about the “The Internet Services Disruption” shortly after he arrived at Microsoft … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Accept Corporation 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 is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Accept Corporation’s SaaS-based Accept 360 Innovation Management solution empowers product teams to more quickly develop compelling products that generate greater revenues, because they’re better aligned with the market and company strategy.

Click here to read more about the measurable business benefits which earned Accept Corporation the latest BoSS Award.

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

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies … Read More »

In addition to posting my views and latest THINKstrategies’ news on this blog, I’ve also become a regular contributor to the UBM TechWeb online macrosite called Internet Evolution.

In recent weeks I’ve examined the following topics,

When Cloud Terminology Backfires 
Purpose-Built Social Networks Make Corporate Inroads 
Cloud Providers Hope Dashboards Build Trust 
Telcos Invade Cloud Services 
A New Take on Cloud Standardization

Click here to find all of my Internet Evolution commentaries and comments. I hope you find them interesting.  If so, you can set up an RSS feed to follow these commentaries or follow my latest Twitter updates @thinkstrategies.