It has been clear for awhile that a major shift has been happening in enterprise computing. It has taken time to gain traction and momentum, but it looks like Software as a Service (SaaS) is nearly there.
Companies will look to adopt SaaS solutions for 2 major reasons:
- Lower costs
- Implement quickly
Cost structures are killing IT departments. The old enterprise paradigm just does not scale anymore. No huge capital investments. No new major hardware. No new major software. That also means that any SaaS purchase has to be “instant on.” No more hiring a Big 5 firm to take 6-12 months to roll out basic functionality.
Early adoption of SaaS has been in the CRM space, notably with Salesforce.com. There is a reason that Sales and Marketing were targeted first. These two organizations have the most dynamic processes in the company. They need to be able to react quickly. IT departments are not typically scaled to move so fast with fluid processes. A SaaS company comes in wiht a pitch of I can take this problem away from you and IT will likely bite. Just think about the personalities that are in Sales versus IT.
At the end of the day though, SaaS providers need expertise. Do not expect a company like Salesforce.com to build out an enormous services organization. They are more likely to partner with providers of process consulting, training and integration for particular verticals and foreign markets. Note that this is not technical consulting. The focus will be on the process and how to get there.
Finally, expect that Sales, Marketing and in general CRM will lead future innovation in SaaS. Simply, CRM got there first.
That’s my $0.02.
Interesting post by Robert Scoble: Why Twitter is underhyped and is probably worth five to 10 billion dollars.
Some points to ponder for sure. I would add the following:
1) Businesses seeing ROI generally do not ever share that data. Build all the trust you want. They may have a model to discuss, but in my experience, it is often less than actual.
2) Silicon Valley tech bloggers don’t travel very often and don’t actually meet with real businesses. It is about time some one in Silicon Valley actually said this outloud.
3) Business understands Twitter as a communication path. Business does not understand selective communication paths like Facebook. Plus they can already communicate selectively via e-mail.
Happy reading.
Very interesting article and very cool graphic powered by Tableau Software. Tableau is based in Seattle and makes impressive visualization software. BI folks out there should check them out.
WSJ Blogs: How Long Does It Take To Build A Technology Empire?
Interesting thought at Seth Godin’s blog. Add some gratuitous {brackets} to that clever project you want to do. When your boss hates them, you take them out. This allows you to keep the important stuff in there. I have used variations of this technique and it does work. Rock the boat.
Seth’s Blog: Add some {brackets}
Interesting coffee related read at Gizmodo. Covers a lot of ground on various methods. Worth checking out.
Link: Giz Explains: How to Actually Make Coffee
Amazon is introducing a new AWS service to extend to a virtual private cloud (VPC). Basically it offers the enterprise to extended an existing network via VPN to a logically isolated set of EC2 instances.
From my experience selling cloud-based services, this will play well with the enterprise. Security is critical for enterprises today, tomorrow and in the future. Cloud providers constantly have to get over the security hurdle — even AWS. VPC should be appealing to the enterprise since similar services are already established. Governments will also be interested.
Werner Vogel’s blog post: Seamlessly Extending the Data Center – Introducing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
Coverage at TechCrunch: Amazon Eyes Big Enterprise Budgets With Virtual Private Cloud Service
I hope to make this a regular feature documenting 3 great coffee houses in each of the many neighborhoods of Seattle. If they are on the list, they are worth checking out.
Zeitgeist, Cafe Umbria and All City Coffee are all in Pioneer Square. Great places for a meeting or First Thursdays Art Walk.
Cafe Umbria
320 Occidental Avenue South
Likely my favorite overall. Lack of WiFi keeps conversations down to conversations.
Zeitgeist
171 S Jackson St
Great place to meet. Everyone knows where it is. Can be crowded. Free WiFi keeps helps keep it popular.
All City Coffee
125 Prefontaine Pl S
A little further out from the hub of Pioneer Square, but great access to downtown. Large tables and upstairs provide great places to sit.
Reading bar codes with mobile phones is very popular in Japan. It has yet to catch on in the rest of the world. Interesting read at the Economist on the topic. I have spent a decent chunk of time researching and prototyping QR Codes for use on mobile devices. When it works it is very cool. It does not work all the time. Even open source QR Codes and EZcodes have limitations. The real problem is the devices themselves. Third party providers cannot work on any and all devices that supports a camera. There are just too many phone/carrier/operating system combinations and permutations to do so profitably, and every new phone adds to the matrix. Third party application providers, like ScanLife, claim they work on 80% of phones. Naturally, ScanLife only just recently added support for my Samsung Epix that has a 320 x 320 screen. Device issues are only going to become more complex in the future; however, the camera technology that will allow for better scans will improve.
Interestingly ScanLife used to support QR Codes, but current versions do not. They use their proprietary ScanLife format. More formats, mean more issues and yet another dimension to the phone/carrier/operating system matrix.
Economist: Snap it, click it, use it
My original post from May is proving popular. So here is another view from Kerry Park in Seattle
Seattle’s skyline from Kerry Park in the Queen Anne neighborhood is one of my favorite views of the city. This panoramic was recently taken on a cold, clear autumn morning with my trusty Xpan. Different light from a more southerly sun. For this weekend edition, I am making this wallpaper available for all now 8 (Count’em 8 daily readers. Thanks!) of my readers in 3 sizes. Select the link of the size you want below:
1600 x 555 Seattle Skyline
1280 x 444 Seattle Skyline
1024 x 355 Seattle Skyline
You can check out my entire portfolio at Salmon Bay Photography.