Tag: Software-as-a-Service


Salesforce Reshuffles SaaS, PaaS and APIs in the Internet of Things and AI

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14th October

It can be a full-time job trying to keep up with Salesforce’s latest cloud offerings and messaging. However, it is always worth the effort, because the company’s pronouncements are often early bellwethers of the future direction of the software industry.

This has become particularly true with respect to the company’s evolving efforts to penetrate and gain a prominent position in the artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) markets. Salesforce’s most recent moves, in anticipation of its annual Dreamforce conference, also could be a key indicator of the rapidly changing competitive landscape.

Salesforce has been in the vanguard of promoting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and, more broadly, the value of the cloud. As it has gained success with its widening array of SaaS/cloud offerings, it also has borrowed a strategy from the traditional software industry playbook: adding a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) development layer … Read More »



How the SaaS Industry Is Becoming a Victim of Its Own Success – A Guest Commentary in Datamation

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10th July

There is no longer any doubt that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions have become the preferred method for organizations of all sizes to acquire business applications to satisfy their escalating customer and end-user demands while keeping pace with intensifying competitive pressures.

In fact, many organizations are expanding their SaaS subscriptions to support additional workers, and adopting additional SaaS solutions to redesign more of their business processes.

However, these organizations are often finding that their SaaS implementations are getting a lot more complicated as the SaaS industry and its growing legion of enterprise customers are falling into the same software development and implementation traps that derailed the previous generation of on-premise, perpetual license ISVs who the leading SaaS vendors successfully disrupted over the past decade.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ latest commentary in Datamation about why we believe the SaaS industry could face a significant speed-bump in the future if … Read More »



Is SaaS Slipping Into the Legacy App Abyss? A Guest Commentary in E-Commerce Times

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7th July

Everywhere you look, organizations are shifting their software acquisition preferences and policies away from traditional, on-premises legacy applications to a new generation of on-demand, Software as a Service, or SaaS, solutions.

Although I was an early advocate of SaaS for the unprecedented, business advantages it offers, I’m becoming concerned that many leading SaaS vendors and their enterprise customers are taking actions that significantly compromise the fundamental value of SaaS.

As the old adage goes, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

In the case of SaaS, a growing number of vendors and customers are demonstrating that they can’t get away from their old software habits and biases.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ latest perspectives in E-Commerce Times about how the SaaS industry could face a serious backlash if it lets this trend continue.

You can also click here to read our views … Read More »



Using Cloud-Based Appstores to Handle Consumerization of IT – A Datamation Commentary

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16th August

THINKstrategies believes IT managers and their corporate counterparts should consider building internal appstores to counteract the challenges of the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) phenomenon. A growing array of Cloud-based marketplace platforms have emerged that can make it even easier to pursue this idea and regain control over renegade end-user app purchases. The tremendous success of the Apple, Google and Amazon appstores among consumers has encouraged their business alter egos, the prosumers, to seek new business applications from the same sources, causing a ‘Bring Your Own App’ (BYOA) trend to emerge. Click here to read our views in Datamation.



Third Annual Cloud Channel Summit to Focus on New SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Big Data & SMB Partner Opportunities

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14th August

The agenda for this year’s Cloud Channel Summit on Monday, November 4 has been designed to focus on the rapidly evolving Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Big Data and Small-/Mid-Size Business (SMB) partner opportunities in the Cloud. Register now and save $100 on the conference registration fee!

The third annual Summit will once again take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and this year will include a special “Speed Networking” session to give attendees additional time to meet others interested in establishing new partnerships to expand their Cloud ecosystems.

Click here to see the full Summit agenda, and here to see the speakers who have already committed to participate in this year’s event.

CallidusCloud, Corent Technologies, CorSource Technology Group, Oracle, Salesforce.com and SoftServe are returning as sponsors supporting this year’s peer-to-peer, executive networking forum. Click here to learn more about the sponsors, and here to see the Summit partners.

Click here if you haven’t attended a … Read More »



The True Meaning of the New Salesforce.com / Oracle Alliance: Pragmatism Overtakes Polemics – Sandhill.com Guest Blogpost

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7th July

Last month’s announcement of a “major” strategic alliance between Salesforce.com and Oracle attracted plenty of industry attention; but it holds more meaning for enterprise decision makers about how a new pragmatism is overtaking the polemics of the past in dealing with the realities of moving to the cCloud in a hybrid environment. Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspective regarding the implications of this alliance for enterprise decision-makers on Sandhill.com.



IT’s Time for PaaS is Here

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18th June

It was about ten years ago when a new generation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) alternatives started to gain acceptance and adoption among organizations of all sizes. And, it has only been about five years since Amazon Web Services captured the attention of the marketplace with its Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 offerings which opened the door to a vast array of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings. Now, the third piece of the Cloud Computing puzzle is beginning to win over organizations seeking to build their own apps – Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

While SaaS and IaaS solutions have experienced exponential growth and are forecast to continue to displace traditional, on-premise software and systems, PaaS has remained a relatively dormant segment of the Cloud marketplace. The lack of adoption of the various PaaS alternatives which have emerged over the past few years has been understandable. Organizations could … Read More »



Productizing Customer Success in the Cloud – Guest Commentary in Sandhill.com

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2nd June

A pivotal principle that sets Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apart from the on-premises, legacy applications of the past is the shift of the vendors’ priorities so they better align with their customers. Rather than placing the burden of deploying and managing the software on the customer, SaaS vendors have to ensure customer satisfaction, minimize churn and maximize the lifetime value of their customers.

Achieving this objective requires the right combination of staff skills, business processes and support systems. Although every successful SaaS company has been committed to the idea of customer success, capturing the right data to gain a holistic view of the customer to better serve their needs has been a significant challenge.

Click here to read why, how the Pulse2013 conference hosted by Gainsight brought attention to this issue, and how THINKstrategies sees a new generation of Cloud-based ‘Customer Success Management’ solutions is addressing … Read More »



ISV Migration to the Cloud via Managed Services – A Guest Commentary in Sandhill.com

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28th May

In one of my recent commentaries in Sandhill.com, I discussed the growing opportunities incumbent software vendors (ISVs), especially publicly traded ISVs, have to move their applications to the cloud and offer a new generation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to their customers. Click here to read about one path I think provides particular promise to those ISVs that are concerned about cannibalizing their installed base of perpetual license customers and disrupting their existing business models in Sandhill.com.



Leveraging Single Sign-On Solutions to Gain Control of Your Cloud Apps

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1st May

As a result of the rapid adoption of Cloud-based applications, many IT and corporate decision-makers are becoming increasingly concerned about the security implications of these ‘on-demand’ alternatives. At the same time, end-users are becoming increasingly frustrated by the various passwords they need to manage in order to access multiple Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions have been designed to address these issues. Click here to read THINKstrategies’ views on the InsightCloud blog about the business benefits of implementing the right SSO solution to manage your SaaS apps.






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