Showing posts with label IT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IT. Show all posts
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, July 17, 2009
SaaS vs. On-Premise Apps: Can't We All Just Get Along?
The misleading debate between SaaS and on-premise software undermines the strength of corporate IT shops.
We live in a society that relishes competition and taking sides: Republican or Democrat? Anti-abortion or pro-choice? Red Sox or Yankees?
Philosophical allegiances are equally pervasive in high-tech, where debates over Mac vs. Windows, Oracle vs. SAP, and proprietary vs. open source rage on and on.
Now, the "us versus them" mentality is engulfing on-premise software and SaaS/on-demand applications, and the bitter and misleading debate between the two licensing models threatens to both undermine the strength of SaaS applications (and in some cases, of on-premise software, too) and to cheat CIOs of the benefits of both models.
Fanning the SaaS vs. on-premise flames are tech journalists, IT analysts and the software vendors themselves. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, the maker of SaaS CRM apps, has said that his company can't be compared to "mature, dying models like Oracle and SAP, which are maybe already dead."
But let's stop the incessant chest-thumping and unnecessary hyperbole for a minute.
Instead, let's look at a recent trend piece from Gartner that essentially condemns the future of SaaS, and dig a little deeper for some much-needed perspective.
A recent Gartner survey of SaaS users and prospective customers in 333 U.S. and U.K. enterprises "found that the apparent acceptance of SaaS as a viable model has not entirely translated into satisfied users of SaaS." These users were said to be "lukewarm" and "underwhelmed" by SaaS, the Gartner analysts pointed out.
Really?
In that very same report, Gartner noted that "58 percent of organizations will maintain current levels of SaaS in the next two years, 32 percent will expand, 5 percent will discontinue and 5 percent will decrease levels."
So just 10 percent were going to decrease or discontinue investment in SaaS, and the other 90 percent were going to maintain or expand their SaaS use, yet SaaS is suddenly "underwhelming" companies? The report goes on: "Survey findings showed that overall, organizations are somewhat satisfied with SaaS, with an average score 4.74 on a 7-point scale." To me, 4.74 on a 7 point scale isn't so bad.
Nevertheless, Gartner offered the following divisive conclusion: SaaS is flawed and overhyped, so on-premise software—what else is there?—is the key!
For too many years, big-vendor FUD has driven home the perception that SaaS enterprise apps simply can't scale to meet the mission-critical needs of the Fortune 500. Interestingly, SAP CTO Vishal Sikka told me in an interview that many of SAP's applications aren't currently able to scale to meet the needs of many of its massive customers' computing needs, and that's fine with many of SAP's customers.
Sikka is right, of course. Some companies don't want anything to do with a multitenant product offering right now. And that's perfectly OK.
But those industry watchers who make blanket statements about what SaaS or on-premise software can and cannot do and which industry segment can and cannot use either software product are foolhardy, at best, and dangerous, at worst.
Just ask GE CIO Gary Reiner: GE's supply chain has 500,000 suppliers in more than 100 countries. Each year, the company spends some $55 billion among its vast supplier base.
Big company? Yes. Mission-critical? Absolutely. And Reiner uses a SaaS supply chain partner application to manage it all. (And there are plenty more examples just like GE's.)
Rest assured that Reiner has plenty of on-premise enterprise apps running his global company. In this instance, however, SaaS just made more sense.
In fact, the big-versus-little debate was recently debunked by CIO's May 2009 "Economic Impact Survey" (pdf) of 171 IT leaders: Large company CIOs (59 percent) are more likely than their small (31 percent) and midmarket counterparts (38 percent) to consider alternative IT models, such as SaaS or on-demand applications, as a result of current economic conditions.
Let's not make enterprise software any more confusing than it already is. In these financially turbulent times, I'm advocating for a reasoned viewpoint that encourages hybrid and well-strategized enterprise software plans that take into account all the gray areas that exist in a world that's no longer black and white.
We all have choice now. It's not the time to blindly and stubbornly take one side and ignore the other.
By Thomas Wailgum, 07/13/09
We live in a society that relishes competition and taking sides: Republican or Democrat? Anti-abortion or pro-choice? Red Sox or Yankees?
Philosophical allegiances are equally pervasive in high-tech, where debates over Mac vs. Windows, Oracle vs. SAP, and proprietary vs. open source rage on and on.
Now, the "us versus them" mentality is engulfing on-premise software and SaaS/on-demand applications, and the bitter and misleading debate between the two licensing models threatens to both undermine the strength of SaaS applications (and in some cases, of on-premise software, too) and to cheat CIOs of the benefits of both models.
Fanning the SaaS vs. on-premise flames are tech journalists, IT analysts and the software vendors themselves. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, the maker of SaaS CRM apps, has said that his company can't be compared to "mature, dying models like Oracle and SAP, which are maybe already dead."
But let's stop the incessant chest-thumping and unnecessary hyperbole for a minute.
Instead, let's look at a recent trend piece from Gartner that essentially condemns the future of SaaS, and dig a little deeper for some much-needed perspective.
A recent Gartner survey of SaaS users and prospective customers in 333 U.S. and U.K. enterprises "found that the apparent acceptance of SaaS as a viable model has not entirely translated into satisfied users of SaaS." These users were said to be "lukewarm" and "underwhelmed" by SaaS, the Gartner analysts pointed out.
Really?
In that very same report, Gartner noted that "58 percent of organizations will maintain current levels of SaaS in the next two years, 32 percent will expand, 5 percent will discontinue and 5 percent will decrease levels."
So just 10 percent were going to decrease or discontinue investment in SaaS, and the other 90 percent were going to maintain or expand their SaaS use, yet SaaS is suddenly "underwhelming" companies? The report goes on: "Survey findings showed that overall, organizations are somewhat satisfied with SaaS, with an average score 4.74 on a 7-point scale." To me, 4.74 on a 7 point scale isn't so bad.
Nevertheless, Gartner offered the following divisive conclusion: SaaS is flawed and overhyped, so on-premise software—what else is there?—is the key!
For too many years, big-vendor FUD has driven home the perception that SaaS enterprise apps simply can't scale to meet the mission-critical needs of the Fortune 500. Interestingly, SAP CTO Vishal Sikka told me in an interview that many of SAP's applications aren't currently able to scale to meet the needs of many of its massive customers' computing needs, and that's fine with many of SAP's customers.
Sikka is right, of course. Some companies don't want anything to do with a multitenant product offering right now. And that's perfectly OK.
But those industry watchers who make blanket statements about what SaaS or on-premise software can and cannot do and which industry segment can and cannot use either software product are foolhardy, at best, and dangerous, at worst.
Just ask GE CIO Gary Reiner: GE's supply chain has 500,000 suppliers in more than 100 countries. Each year, the company spends some $55 billion among its vast supplier base.
Big company? Yes. Mission-critical? Absolutely. And Reiner uses a SaaS supply chain partner application to manage it all. (And there are plenty more examples just like GE's.)
Rest assured that Reiner has plenty of on-premise enterprise apps running his global company. In this instance, however, SaaS just made more sense.
In fact, the big-versus-little debate was recently debunked by CIO's May 2009 "Economic Impact Survey" (pdf) of 171 IT leaders: Large company CIOs (59 percent) are more likely than their small (31 percent) and midmarket counterparts (38 percent) to consider alternative IT models, such as SaaS or on-demand applications, as a result of current economic conditions.
Let's not make enterprise software any more confusing than it already is. In these financially turbulent times, I'm advocating for a reasoned viewpoint that encourages hybrid and well-strategized enterprise software plans that take into account all the gray areas that exist in a world that's no longer black and white.
We all have choice now. It's not the time to blindly and stubbornly take one side and ignore the other.
By Thomas Wailgum, 07/13/09
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Ex-Microsoftie: Free Software Will Kill Redmond
Keith Curtis, author and former Microsoft programmer, makes no bones about his view that open source puts the software giant's wares to shame. In this interview, he discusses what's wrong with Microsoft programming, what's behind all those bugs, and what's shaping his former employer's grim future.
May 21, 2009 — CIO — Bill Gates probably will not sing the praises of Keith Curtis, a programmer with Microsoft for 11 years who's now left the fold and written a book about why the Redmond way will fail. Oh yeah, Curtis is not afraid to speak his mind as a Linux guru, either.
The mantra Curtis repeats throughout his book "After the Software Wars": proprietary software is holding us back as a society.
In the book, Curtis says that while proprietary software made Microsoft one of the most successful companies of all time, it's a model destined to fail because it doesn't let software programmers cooperate and contribute, and thus stifles innovation.
Curtis did programming work on Windows, Office and research at Microsoft and never actually used Linux, he says, until he quit his job in late 2004. The ensuing years have made him a Linux fanatic, and he is convinced that free, open-source software is technically superior. As long as Microsoft and its proprietary model dominate, Curtis says, we will live in "the dark ages of computing."
"If Microsoft, 20 years ago, built Windows in an open way, Linux wouldn't exist, and millions of programmers would be improving Windows rather than competing with it."
Keith Curtis In an interview with CIO.com's Shane O'Neill, Curtis discusses the rise of free software, Linux's role in what he calls the inevitable fall of software's biggest giant and ... robot-driven cars.
In what ways will free software be Microsoft's undoing?
Free software will lead to the demise of Microsoft as we know it in two ways.
First, the free software community is producing technically superior products through an open, collaborative development model. People think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, and not primarily software, but it is an excellent case study of this coming revolution.
There are also many pieces of free software that have demonstrated technical superiority to their proprietary counterparts. Firefox is widely regarded by Web developers as superior to Internet Explorer. The Linux kernel runs everything from cellphones to supercomputers. Even Apple threw away their proprietary kernel and replaced it with a free one.
Second, free software undermines Microsoft's profit margins. Even if Microsoft were to adopt Linux — a thought experiment I consider in the afterword of my book — their current business model would be threatened. There are many ways for hardware and service companies to make money using free software, but these are not Microsoft's sources of revenues.
Free products like Linux and Google Docs currently comprise only a tiny proportion of their respective markets compared to Microsoft. What will it take for free software to truly catch on with consumers and businesses as you predict it will? And how long will that take?
By Shane O'Neill
May 21, 2009 — CIO — Bill Gates probably will not sing the praises of Keith Curtis, a programmer with Microsoft for 11 years who's now left the fold and written a book about why the Redmond way will fail. Oh yeah, Curtis is not afraid to speak his mind as a Linux guru, either.
The mantra Curtis repeats throughout his book "After the Software Wars": proprietary software is holding us back as a society.
In the book, Curtis says that while proprietary software made Microsoft one of the most successful companies of all time, it's a model destined to fail because it doesn't let software programmers cooperate and contribute, and thus stifles innovation.
Curtis did programming work on Windows, Office and research at Microsoft and never actually used Linux, he says, until he quit his job in late 2004. The ensuing years have made him a Linux fanatic, and he is convinced that free, open-source software is technically superior. As long as Microsoft and its proprietary model dominate, Curtis says, we will live in "the dark ages of computing."
"If Microsoft, 20 years ago, built Windows in an open way, Linux wouldn't exist, and millions of programmers would be improving Windows rather than competing with it."
Keith Curtis In an interview with CIO.com's Shane O'Neill, Curtis discusses the rise of free software, Linux's role in what he calls the inevitable fall of software's biggest giant and ... robot-driven cars.
In what ways will free software be Microsoft's undoing?
Free software will lead to the demise of Microsoft as we know it in two ways.
First, the free software community is producing technically superior products through an open, collaborative development model. People think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, and not primarily software, but it is an excellent case study of this coming revolution.
There are also many pieces of free software that have demonstrated technical superiority to their proprietary counterparts. Firefox is widely regarded by Web developers as superior to Internet Explorer. The Linux kernel runs everything from cellphones to supercomputers. Even Apple threw away their proprietary kernel and replaced it with a free one.
Second, free software undermines Microsoft's profit margins. Even if Microsoft were to adopt Linux — a thought experiment I consider in the afterword of my book — their current business model would be threatened. There are many ways for hardware and service companies to make money using free software, but these are not Microsoft's sources of revenues.
Free products like Linux and Google Docs currently comprise only a tiny proportion of their respective markets compared to Microsoft. What will it take for free software to truly catch on with consumers and businesses as you predict it will? And how long will that take?
By Shane O'Neill
Thursday, May 21, 2009
SaaS Vendors Need to Get a Clue About APIs
One big obstacle to SaaS vendors getting their applications adopted more widely is that so many of them don’t offer open APIs.
Bob Brown - Wed, May 20, 2009 — Network World — LAS VEGAS -- One big obstacle to SaaS vendors getting their applications adopted more widely is that so many of them don't offer open APIs. Offering APIs is crucial for vendors to get their applications supported by channel partners and for customers looking to integrate SaaS offerings with legacy applications, said participants on the panel for a lively but lightly attended session Tuesday at Interop in Las Vegas dubbed "Herding cats: Managing SaaS sprawl."
"It's stunning to me the number of SaaS companies that don't even consider an API as part of the development cycle," says Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource, a company that mainly helps SaaS vendors deliver their offerings to businesses but is also now extending its services to enterprises running their own clouds. "Lord knows two Web developers in a garage know to put out an API. [For SaaS vendors not doing this it's] killing them."
Panelists said providing an API that channel and integrate partners could cut the cost of acquiring customers for SaaS vendors.
"Customer acquisition is the biggest cost," said Tim Dilley, executive vice president, worldwide services and chief customer officer for SaaS vendor NetSuite. "The general notion of having a robust API to data is a critical jumping in point" for SaaS vendors wanting to play in the enterprise, said Narinder Singh, founder of Appirio, a company that helps customers exploit on-demand applications.
Still, Bob Moul, CEO of application integration company Boomi, said "channels are still evolving" around SaaS products, so there's still time for SaaS companies to find a fit with new and traditional integrators.
One difference that SaaS vendors are already seeing is that a lot of their sales go through line-of-business chiefs rather than CIOs or the IT department, panelists said.
NetSuite's Dilley said he's seen evidence over the past six months that CIOs actually are getting more aware of SaaS. This is important because overseeing a SaaS environment is much different than overseeing a traditional application environment – with SaaS, for example, upgrades might be continuous whereas traditional apps were more likely to undergo big upgrades only every six months or more, he said.
Singh said he doesn't see suites going entirely away but does foresee a more heterogeneous applications environment. "How customers get support and how stuff works together, it's unclear how that gets resolved," he said.
Among the other concerns for those in the SaaS industry is standards creep. Singh said he's concerned that new compliance and standards efforts could be used by those who are behind in the SaaS game to slow things down enough that they can catch up. "Standards…too often slow innovation," he said.
© 2007 Network World Inc.
Bob Brown - Wed, May 20, 2009 — Network World — LAS VEGAS -- One big obstacle to SaaS vendors getting their applications adopted more widely is that so many of them don't offer open APIs. Offering APIs is crucial for vendors to get their applications supported by channel partners and for customers looking to integrate SaaS offerings with legacy applications, said participants on the panel for a lively but lightly attended session Tuesday at Interop in Las Vegas dubbed "Herding cats: Managing SaaS sprawl."
"It's stunning to me the number of SaaS companies that don't even consider an API as part of the development cycle," says Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource, a company that mainly helps SaaS vendors deliver their offerings to businesses but is also now extending its services to enterprises running their own clouds. "Lord knows two Web developers in a garage know to put out an API. [For SaaS vendors not doing this it's] killing them."
Panelists said providing an API that channel and integrate partners could cut the cost of acquiring customers for SaaS vendors.
"Customer acquisition is the biggest cost," said Tim Dilley, executive vice president, worldwide services and chief customer officer for SaaS vendor NetSuite. "The general notion of having a robust API to data is a critical jumping in point" for SaaS vendors wanting to play in the enterprise, said Narinder Singh, founder of Appirio, a company that helps customers exploit on-demand applications.
Still, Bob Moul, CEO of application integration company Boomi, said "channels are still evolving" around SaaS products, so there's still time for SaaS companies to find a fit with new and traditional integrators.
One difference that SaaS vendors are already seeing is that a lot of their sales go through line-of-business chiefs rather than CIOs or the IT department, panelists said.
NetSuite's Dilley said he's seen evidence over the past six months that CIOs actually are getting more aware of SaaS. This is important because overseeing a SaaS environment is much different than overseeing a traditional application environment – with SaaS, for example, upgrades might be continuous whereas traditional apps were more likely to undergo big upgrades only every six months or more, he said.
Singh said he doesn't see suites going entirely away but does foresee a more heterogeneous applications environment. "How customers get support and how stuff works together, it's unclear how that gets resolved," he said.
Among the other concerns for those in the SaaS industry is standards creep. Singh said he's concerned that new compliance and standards efforts could be used by those who are behind in the SaaS game to slow things down enough that they can catch up. "Standards…too often slow innovation," he said.
© 2007 Network World Inc.
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