Lars Fløe Nielsen

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Thursday, 28 February 2008

Software as a Service – next generation

So, i’ve just gotten home from the EasyFair ICT/Internet EXPO held here in Denmark, - a fair where Sitecore was represented on a booth with one of our partners (Pentia). I wasn’t on the booth myself, but rather visiting other boots and to hear some of the exiting panel debates and other interesting stuff.

Jesper Lykkegaard, sales director, Pentia (left) and Thomas Kirk Albert, CEO, Pentia (right) engaged in a discussion with a customer (center).

 

I followed a lot interesting discussions and presentations, - and wont’ go into details on them except for a very cool presentation by PwC security.  They managed to hack the VoIP of a (fictive) company, through a scenario where the target didn’t have direct access to the internet, but only the Intranet (who were using the same SQL as the internet server in the DMZ). The intranet server was even behind yet another firewall. They used SQL injection on the public web server to upload files to the intranet, then vulnerability in WinZip to install the snoop the stream of the VoIP system…. Very cool, - and very scary.

 

Anyways, I too was invited to participate in a panel debate around SaaS with some very clever people. The topic was a series of questions, especially if the customers would want to use this technology and/or if the ISV’s would build software that will work with SaaS.

 

So what were the overall topics?

As a whole, we all agreed that Software as a Service is here to stay. Companies will want to use rented software in a higher and higher degree: SaaS will make it easier for small companies to use software which may be hard to maintain and run (e.g. they can rent MS CRM instead of purchasing it, installing it and run it). Even large companies will seek benefits, as parts of the organization, e.g. marketing, can rent features for a while (e.g. campaign software) without the need to clear this with the IT department. Naturally we also discussed that some applications have to be cleared with the IT department: Usually business critical systems. Here’s an example: An IT department may not object if the marketing department rents a small web site for campaign purposes (for example 2-3 months), while they most likely would object if the marketing department chose MS CRM instead of the Corporate SAP CRM as this will defragment the data, and render the synergies of a shared customer database obsolete.

 

However, we also discussed what could put a lid on companies desire to invest in SaaS: Security. For example, if a major SaaS (e.g. the CRM SalesForce) should be unfortunate to publicize one of their customers entire customer database, exposing this to the customers competitors. However, Anders E. Trolle-Scultz also came with an interesting observation… SaaS might be safer for most companies because the ISP and ISV would be focusing on security for that particular software, while the small company most likely would not have this kind of expertise.

 

I had a topic I wanted to discuss: I didn’t believe the question if the ISV’s are ready for SaaS should be asked, but rather a more broad question; will the ISV’s get ready with SaaS enabled software, and when they are, can they get the software hosted somewhere?

 

The fact is that almost no ISP’s are ready for SaaS. Naturally you can design a solution, then have an ISP host it, - but it requires much more than that. The hoster should deliver a framework which can automate processes for installation of the ISV software, - ordering software for the end customer etc.

 

Now, some ISP’s have actually purchased a SaaS framework, e.g. DK vendor Cohaesio, but I really don’t think this will kick off unless a SaaS framework and process description is ready. For example, can we all agree on one framework, then the ISP can install it, - and the ISV can code their applications up against it.

 

Fortunately, Microsoft has picked up on this challenge, - and started their SaaS incubation center as the only major vendor on the market. And hopefully, - at some point, they will supply a full SaaS framework the ISP can install on their servers, and a set of rules that the ISV must code their applications up against. Imagine a scenario that if so, the ISV’s can go to any ISP (who runs the framework) and deliver their software on a CD. Then the ISP can start offering the software within a day.

 

Another good note was made by Bjørn Skou Eilertsen from Microsoft. He believed (and I concur) that companies in future would use a combination of Software as a Service (that is rented and serviced software), along with Software + Services (the ability to have your application installed locally, then have the application use services online, e.g. MS Outlook having contact details updated automatically through a remote directory).

 

Abbreviations used in this article:

ISP: Internet Service Provider. A company specializing in hosting solutions.

ISV: Independent Software Vendor. A company that produces software.

SaaS: Software as a Service.

 

Related Articles:

SaaS incubation project

19:15 Posted in SaaS | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

Tuesday, 05 February 2008

Blog post update

Hey everyone,

I've just updated the Blog post dictionary about Sitecore, external bloggers and internal. You'll see 6 addtions, - a few changes on RSS vs. ATOM (now all RSS), one removal.

I've also updated the Sitecore RSS pipeline on pipes.yahoo.com, meaning it now contains 32 RSS sources; all of those on my page. You can find the pipe here: http://pipes.yahoo.com/sitecore and if you like to subscribe to this pipe (instead of adding each of these on my page individually), use http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=ZsFOz4a62xG9Py3....

08:10 Posted in Sitecore | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this