Anyone who has attempted to adopt Salesforce cloud solutions in an enterprise environment knows that it may not be as easy as expected because of the additional effort typically required to integrate various data sources.

This is a common problem that has plagued the enterprise application industry since its inception. In fact, it spawned an entire subsegment of data integration solution vendors and systems integration service providers that have prospered by helping organizations overcome their data integration challenges.

However, by spearheading a new generation of cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) alternatives, Salesforce gained control of the enterprise application marketplace. The SaaS model promised to rectify the age-old data integration issue so that organizations could accelerate the software adoption process.

The lingering data integration challenge has prompted Salesforce to make it’s biggest acquisition to date – the purchase of Mulesoft for approximately $6.5 billion.

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The rise of Microsoft Azure as a major competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become a mixed blessing for IT managers.

While many were pleased to see Microsoft finally become a cloud-first company and build Azure into a viable alternative to AWS, they now are faced with a new set of challenges in trying to make the most of multiple cloud providers.

The expanding array of cloud alternatives not only has created a bit of a buyer’s market, but also has made it more difficult to manage the increasingly complicated assortment of cloud services.

Click here to read THINKstrategies perspective in E-Commerce Times about the IT and business impact of the rapidly evolving multicloud procurement trend.

Anyone who attended the recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent conference — or watched many sessions online, as I did — probably is still trying to absorb the full implications of all of the company’s initiatives unveiled at the event. Although AWS already has redefined the computing and software development industries fundamentally, with its groundbreaking Infrastructure as a Service offerings, it isn’t resting on its laurels.

In fact, AWS’s parent company appears to have in mind far broader ambitions to significantly reshape the competitive landscape in more than just the IT industry in the coming years. Click here to read THINKstrategies’ views in E-Commerce Times about how Amazon is positioning itself to disrupt more industries in the coming year and beyond.

One of the age-old challenges that has plagued the software industry, like many others, is how vendors can reach small- and mid-sized businesses with their software products. A new trend is emerging that promises to help SMBs take full advantage of cloud computing — the proliferation of easy-to-use marketplaces focusing on business-oriented SaaS apps. App store hosting companies are working with major retailers like Staples, which offers its own App Center, as well as with nonprofits that support small businesses, such as state and local chambers of commerce.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspective in E-Commerce Times on this trend and its potential to unlock the key to selling SaaS to SMBs.