Debating the meaning of ‘cloud computing’ has become a popular pastime among analysts, journalists, vendors and even customers.

The latest entrant into the discussion is the Wall Street Journal which published an article today entitled, “The Internet Industry Is on a Cloud — Whatever That May Mean.” (Registration may be required.)

In addition to raising the fundamental question about how to properly define cloud computing, the WSJ article also mentions Oracle CEO/Chairman’s Larry Ellison’s comments over the past few years downplaying the market opportunity for cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

Although I’ve offered my own views on this topic before in this space, here are some additional thoughts in response to the WSJ article:

1. What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a set of web-based enabling tools and services which permit users to acquire computing capabilities to build or support applications, or perform … Read More »

I moderated a panel at OpSource’s SaaS Summit this week entitled “Selling SaaS to the Enterprise” which included representatives from Cast Iron Systems, Oracle and the Business Objects unit of SAP, as well as the Manager of Global Operations Business Technology at Pfizer.

They all agreed that SaaS and cloud computing are making serious inroads into the enterprise but still face significant challenges, including scalability, security and flexibility issues.

In response to the flexibility topic, there was general consensus among the panelists that customers want a choice of on-premise and on-demand alternatives to serve various corporate requirements.

Although I’m very proud to have correctly predicted many of the major trends which have shaped the SaaS market evolution, I’ve never believed that the world would move entirely to an all on-demand environment for a variety of customer and vendor-driven reasons. Therefore, I’ve always expected … Read More »

Salesforce.com unveiled its year-end 2008 financial results earlier this week and, as the company had predicted, it passed the billion dollar mark, reporting total revenues of $1.077 billion, an increase of 44%over the 2007.

This milestone event, combined with the company’s rising earnings per share growth, are clear indications of the overall strength of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market despite the challenges of today’s tough economy.

In fact, Marc Benioff, the company’s Chairman and CEO, is quoted in the company’s press release as saying, “At a time when capital is precious, big-ticket software purchases just don’t make sense.”

I am also a firm believer that Salesforce.com’s continued growth, and that of the overall SaaS industry, will be fueled by today’s economic crisis.  IT and business decision-makers are increasingly recognizing not only the economic advantages of SaaS, but also the fact that SaaS represents a more effective method of supporting a more dispersed workforce and leveraging the latest innovations in … Read More »

In an InformationWeek interview on Tuesday, SAP’s CEO and president of global field operations, Bill McDermott, downplayed the platform capabilities and enterprise-readiness of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing.

Although Salesforce.com’s outage this week gave McDermott’s comments some immediate validation, they were still reminiscent of the views of a previous generation of tech industry executives who discounted the value of PCs in the corporate world. As a result of the myopic ideas of those former tech titans, companies like Digital Equipment Corporation and Wang Computers no longer exist.

Denial didn’t work out well for them and it won’t work for SAP either.

Executives at SAP aren’t alone in their efforts to downplay SaaS. The CEO of Lawson Software made even more atrocious comments a few months ago, as did Oracle’s CRM head at November’s SIIA On-Demand conference.

Of course, much of their ridicule is aimed at fending off the competitive threat which the SaaS/cloud … Read More »

The service disruption which Salesforce.com experienced this week came at a bad time for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing market.

Although I believe the long-term prospects for SaaS and cloud computing remain strong, there are plenty of short-term challenges facing SaaS and cloud computing vendors in today’s tough economic environment.

Salesforce.com’s outage reignites the debate about the reliability of web-based services, and will intensify the concerns of those IT and business decision-makers who have been reluctant to adopt on-demand solutions.

It also validates the claims of legacy software vendors that SaaS and cloud computing are not viable platforms for enterprise applications.

The ultimate irony is that the public website which Salesforce.com created after it experienced a series of outages in 2005-2006 to demonstrate greater accountability, www.trust.salesforce.com, also went down during the latest outage.

In 2006, Salesforce.com was quick to turn its problems into marketing opportunities. This time there is even more … Read More »