Tag Archives: Cloud

WEB 2.0 and Cloud Computing for the Enterprise

Posted on September 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

Today I came across a post by Yoni Barel that I liked very much – The business of cloud computing. Yoni works for ActionBase, and has actually crossed over from the Consumer oriented Internet to the Enterprise side.

Yoni’s assessment of the Enterprise attitude to technology is very relevant in a (virtual) world where the trends are set by attic designs and exploratory stints. Some of these are very cool and attractive, but not always usable and reliable enough for the Enterprise. In this respect, ActionBase walks a fine line, taking the ubiquitous Chat paradigm into the constrained and compliant Enterprise to deliver a cool collaborative experience.

This pours more water onto the mill of what Enterprise 2.0 is about and Enterprise RIA. Ofer Spiegel published recently a highly recommended paper about Building a User Interface to Deliver Optimal User Experience - making very useful distinctions between Rich User Interface and Rich User Experience, in particular when it comes to Enterprise Applications.

Yoni also discusses the pertinence of Cloud Computing as the principal computing platform for a business, touching upon the controversy that McKenzie raised a few months ago. The bottom line according to both, is that at present Cloud based infrastructure such as Amazon EC2 is great for temporary and overflow needs, but wholly owned infrastructure (on-premise or hosted) is still more suitable for the basic core infrastructure.

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Posted in Opinions & Comments

Tagged ActionBase, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise RIA, Jonatan Barel, Ofer Spiegel, Social Computing, virtualization, Web 2.0

More action in the Cloud with VMWare+SpringSource – and ISV’s getting encouraging results

Posted on August 17, 2009 | 2 Comments

The proliferation of “everything-as-a-service” acronyms is often confusing, and merits an explanation and simplification. The VMware acquisition of SpringSource is an excellent illustration of the architecture. At the infrastructure level we find Operating System resources, which VMware encapsulates and virtualizes, offering shared hardware multitenancy but very limited elasticity. In order to increase the resource elasticity – which is the key factor of cost savings – virtualization needs to extend to the application level. That is the next layer, and I would expect that a tight integration of SpringSource with VMware would in fact provide this for Java based applications.

This evolution has a lot of similarities to Microsoft’s move with Azure. Whereas Azure offers Cloud enablement for .NET applications, VMware+SpringSource would do the same for Java applications. However, in both cases this applies rather to newly developed applications – existing applications need to be redesigned in order to take advantage of the virtualization and resource abstraction features.

As I have noted in other posts, ISV’s who want to extend their portfolio and take advantage of the growing demand for SaaS need to work across multiple deployment models, where development and maintenance costs can double if they need to create the same application in more than one format.

So the main challenge for most ISV’s is to manage an extended solution portfolio, continuing to service their current customer base with current deployment models while driving growth through Cloud Based deployment. VMware+SpringSource will facilitate this for Java oriented ISV’s, as the announcement states support for both traditional JEE deployments as well as Cloud based deployments.

An alternative to the bottom-up approach of system infrastructure vendors such as VMware or Microsoft, comes from some Application Infrastructure vendors such as SalesForce.com or Magic Software. These vendors provide for some time already PaaS and SaaS/Cloud Enabled Application Platforms (SEAP), which deal with virtualization and elasticity by abstracting system resources from the applications, so that XaaS can be achieved at conventional data centres.

Today I came across an account of a UK based ISV whose been there and done that – successfully, even in the present economy climate. Take a look at the story of FactoryMaster and how they manage take advantage of the new platforms.

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Posted in Mindshare, Opinions & Comments

Tagged Application Infrastructure, Application Platforms, Cloud, FactoryMaster, ISV, JAVA, Magic Software, Microsoft, Multitenancy, PaaS, Platform as a Service, SEAP, SpringSource, virtualization, VMWare

A broader perspective on Google’s CHROME OS

Posted on July 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

Following the Chrome OS announcement by Google and the hype it generated, I was asked be several people to comment on it. If you lean back and take a certain perspective, it is fascinating to realize how well it fits into the long term technology lifecycle evolution. Having hated History classes as a student, I’m becoming increasingly impressed by the insights it can provide as years go by…

What we see in computing technology is that initially, new features and products are delivered as independent products. Features that become successful and ubiquitous evolve in functionality and become more generic, often ending up as an infrastructure or Operating System option. One of the most dramatic examples that I experienced was the Image Viewer (that is today part of Windows) for TIFF images. In the early 90’s, when Document Imaging was introduced, you could only scan and view documents using specialized hardware accelerators (a dominant vendor was Kofax). The extra cost to support TIFF viewing on a PC was close to $2000, plus an expensive monitor. Many Document Imaging companies (mine included) made a lot of revenue developing and selling Software viewers, reducing user costs by half. Finally (about 8 years later), Microsoft purchased the TIFF viewer that Wang developed and incorporated it for free within Windows.

The evolving Internet now brings about Cloud Computing, and many new features and products are gaining wide adoption (I refer to this in my “living in SOA” post). The Browser was very material in making that happen. The Browser can be considered as a window to the internet. But as more and more users expect to use net-native applications and devices, the Browser is clearly outdated and underperforming. After all, it was designed to display information – not to contain and execute business logic.

What users want now is a door to the internet – designed for bi-directional exchange and more, not just for browsing. Some vendors with extensive web application experience already understood that, and have come up with alternatives to the Browser that support Rich Internet Applications – such as Adobe Air, Microsoft Silverlight or Magic Software uniPaaS RIA. These are very compact engines (the uniPaaS RIA Client is only 2MB) that are designed to execute net-native applications, where the application code resides “in the cloud” (like portals) yet the user gets a rich interactive desktop experience (unlike portals). As I describe in “A battle royale for RIA market” however, developing applications for most of these “new doors” is pretty complex. A handful of vendors started addressing this hurdle, led by Magic Software with uniPaaS and maybe followed by Microsoft with ‘Alexandria’

Google Chrome OS seems to be right in the same evolutionary line. From the scant information I was able to get, it is trying to move all those hurdles down into the OS level and abstract them from users, so that users and application developers would be able to once again focus most of their effort on business logic and user experience rather than on underlying technologies. But we have to be patient and wait for it to become available. And then wait a few years for it to mature.

In the meantime, why not go ahead and use what’s available? After all, history also shows us that those companies who used the early Document Imaging products and systems did gain competitive advantages and developed their business, independently of what became possible later.

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Posted in Mindshare, Opinions & Comments, Uncategorized

Tagged Adobe Air, Alexandria, Application Platforms, Browser, Chrome OS, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Magic Software, Microsoft, RIA, Silverlight, TIFF, uniPaaS

How about a “Personal Cloud”?

Posted on June 26, 2009 | 5 Comments

Mike Gualtieri recently posted “Cloudmania: Developers Need A Personal Cloud”, which I find very pertinent and descriptive of developer’s views. I must say that I do not know professional developers who entertain the idea of their development baby being hooked with an umbilical cord to another mother (such as a hosted PaaS). But they certainly want the ability to test it whenever they want in the target environment.

One thing that probably contributes to the confusion is the almost non-existent distinction between situational applications and core applications. Mike evoked in the past the emergence of “enlightened developers”, who produce situational apps with highly abstracting Platform as a Service environments. But what he is discussing here are not those type of apps and developers but the more professional breed, that develops Enterprise Applications.

I am still perplex at the reasons that made the Application Development community regress from the productive 4GL platforms that emerged in the early 90’s back to 3GL environments such as C and Java. The increasing technical complexity of the Cloud finally halted this and is a fertile ground for the revival and emergence of Metadata Driven Application Platforms, which abstract the technical constraints by pre-programming optimized engines, which feed on Metadata based business logic. And we have to distinguish here very clearly between platforms designed for situational applications, with coarse grained widgets and services, and platforms designed for enterprise applications, that offer the entire granularity spectrum from application and process templates down to embedding code snippets.

Salesforce.com showed the way with Force.com, but it is still Cloud only and pretty much tied to the basic CRM environment. uniPaaS from Magic Software is leveraging its past 4GL experience to provide probably the first Application Platform that corresponds to what you describe as “a Personal Cloud that would allow them to configure their local environment in multiple way and take it with them wherever they go”. My recent interactions at industry events such as RIA World and with many enterprises and ISV’s confirm the growing interest and adoption of these platforms. That’s good news for us all.

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Posted in Opinions & Comments, Questions

Tagged Application Development, Application Platforms, Cloud, Force.com, Magic Software, Mike Gualtieri, PaaS, Personal Cloud, Situational Applications, uniPaaS

Impressions from RIA World

Posted on June 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

I attended today the RIA World convention in Munich, and took away some interesting observations and thoughts.

Enterprise 2.0 and RIA are still very fuzzy – used by everyone, but no one at my session ventured to offer a definition. Very much like Phil Wainewright suggested yesterday on ebizQ, many people associate Enterprise 2.0 with social networking in the enterprise context and RIA’s with flashy effects in the Browser. This being said, it was interesting to note the frequent nods and acknowledging expressions as I brought up Enterprise RIA issues and challenges – the tiered architecture, the connectivity iceberg, and the potential benefits.

Also interesting was to see the increasing awareness of uniPaaS, evidenced by Golo Roden in his sessions about RIA platforms, Ajax and Flex.

At the Microsoft pod I finally saw my first Silverlight based Enterprise RIA – a CRM implementation by Cas Software, with a Silverlight Client and a Linux and JEE backend…

I also met my old buddy Hans-Jochen Fink, one of the pioneering partners of Magic Software in Germany. As we were musing over some old “war stories” and our first encounter at Cebit over 20 years ago (we actually closed a deal at the show), we noted the amazing decline of trade shows and event attendance. That is where the web has tremendously changed the buying behavior. Nowadays, when buyers finally interact with a vendor, they often know more about the vendor’s product than the salesperson they talk to. That knowledge is obtained from the Web – so that’s where vendors should be, rather than at trade shows. The question that follows is what to do with the huge exhibition centers that proliferated in recent decades. RIA World was one of three Internet related conventions that ran simultaneously at the new Munich Trade Fare, but nevertheless these occupied a couple of small floors and the huge place remained mostly empty.

I’m looking for new ideas and reasons to have these conventions – it is still fun to meet the people, but we have find some good business reasons to drive these.

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Posted in Impressions, Questions

Tagged Application Platforms, Cloud, Enterprise 2.0, Magic Software, PaaS, RIA, Social Computing, uniPaaS, Web 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 Applications actually deliver their promised value

Posted on May 27, 2009 | 1 Comment

Last week I spent a lot of time going over case stories around application platform, trying to crystallize drivers and benefits. Yesterday came up a very related question at the ebizQ Web 2.0 Forum (www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/2009/05), in which I am a regular commentator: In What Area of an Enterprise is Web 2.0 Most Underutilized?. Here’s my comment on that.

While collaboration at large (including wikis, blogs and networking) is probably the most widespread Web 2.0 practice to penetrate the enterprise, I find that Enterprise 2.0 applications and UI’s are the most underutilized. That is understandable, since it is in that area that enterprises have extensive investments and legacies, and changing and evolving applications is complex and expensive. Yet, that is probably the area that will have a very significant business impact. We start to see the first implementations, which are indeed delivering the expected benefits. Here’s a recent example I came across – a project which I think is pretty representative of Enterprise 2.0 applications – in the general context of Web 2.0 and “millennial” lifestyle.

The enterprise at the heart of this story produces an innovative “millennial” outdoors consumer product, which is taking its time penetrating the market. In order to accelerate the penetration, they decided to accompany the web and viral marketing campaigns with group events, in which they let groups experience the product. That required their channel partners to organize such events, publish details, register participants, and handle the logistics. The solution had to deal with a combination of requirements that are usually handled by distinct software product – Content Management, Process Management, Procurement, Accounting, Resource Allocation and more. The business case did not justify a long and expensive project and the acquisition and integration of several systems, and this was well beyond the scope of Situational Applications. so the CIO saw here an opportunity to use one of the new platforms that claim agile development and Enterprise 2.0 capabilities. The objective was to provide the various functions in a “cloud” manner, from a single location and a single application to partners and visitors wherever they are. The specification described a Rich Internet Application for the use of the channel partners and implementers, and a dynamic web portal to promote the events and handle registration. Using one of the new RIA platforms (Magic Software’s uniPaaS in this case), they were able to address in one project the varied user personas and use cases, with the appropriate mix of Browser based interaction for visitors and rich interactive clients for power users – all part of a single application. Moreover, given the pure Web Architecture, the entire deployment is in a single data center and no local installation is required. It enables to on-board new partners and scale up the channel with practically no IT hassle – a truly agile operation.

I think that one of the reasons for the slow adoption is also the scarcity of appropriate application infrastructure. But it is probably only a matter of time before this would change.

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Posted in Impressions, Mindshare

Tagged Agile Development, Application Development, Application Infrastructure, Application Platforms, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Magic Software, RIA, Situational Applications, uniPaaS, Web 2.0

The widening gap between SaaS demand and supply

Posted on May 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

The growing customer demand for SaaS solutions and the shift from perpetual license models bears mostly bad news to the traditional software industry. The high margins of applications vendors cannot be sustained in a SaaS model, nor the extensive and expensive on-site consulting and services of large SI’s. Worse, the switch to the new models is very costly. In order to develop and deliver a SaaS solution, a vendor needs twice the capital – and it takes at least twice as long to break even. Vendors who already service a customer base have thus to more than double their costs by maintaining virtually two businesses – one to continue and serve their on-premise customers, and one to develop and later deliver the SaaS version. Once this is achieved, they have to maintain two code bases on two different platform and technologies.

In the current business and investment climate, it is almost impossible for vendors to engage in such transitions and investments – they are more busy with survival.

So at present we have a growing demand for SaaS, and a stagnant supply of some 40 successful SaaS solutions that has little chance to grow and match the demand for more variety, due to the technical and financial barriers mentioned above. Consequently, we could expect some M&A activity as successful SaaS vendors would acquire failing traditional vendors with good IP, and then start porting that IP to their platforms. But that would take a few years – until new solutions become available in quantity.

Which means that we have a growing vacuum – on one hand stagnant supply, and on the other growing demand. Hence the increasing recognition of hybrid models and the appearance of application platforms such as Longjump and Magic Software’s uniPaaS, positioned to can take advantage of that vacuum and grow on it.

SaaS Enabled Application Platform (SEAP) vendors who already have an ISV ecosystem, like Magic Software, might alleviate this situation. I’m familiar with Magic Software’s ecosystem, so I’ll use it as an example. It consists of quite a lot of ISV’s (about 2500) with a broad variety of vertical solutions. Many of them are small, but their continuing existence over the years means that they have good competence in their line of business and loyal customers. Some of them are more professional and have compelling and leading solutions, such as Intelys (French market leader in Real Estate ERP), Creativ (Swiss market leader in NGO ERP) or Dove Tree Canyon (US leading provider of Warehousing and Distribution solutions). Many of these ISV’s see the expansion of their offering to SaaS as their growth path. To do so, they’ll have to migrate to uniPaaS and RIA they will have to improve their User Experience and processes to match current best practices. Yet all this effort would require a fraction of the cost and time compared to traditional vendors, and be much more sustainable. They would be able to pursue a more balanced business model with both short-term on-premise revenues and longer term SaaS based revenue, and fill up the growing vacuum in SaaS solutions.

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Posted in Mindshare

Tagged Application Platforms, Cloud, ISV, Longjump, Magic Software, PaaS, RIA, SaaS, SEAP, uniPaaS

The coming out of the hybrid SaaS model

Posted on May 4, 2009 | 2 Comments

The current controversy that considers SaaS as mutually exclusive with On Premise is, in my view, more related to the current state of technology, than to business or functional issues.

Clearly, if On Demand applications have to be developed and deployed on entirely different platforms and technologies (RIA and multi-tenant) than On Premise applications (Windows and JEE or .NET), then it is difficult, cumbersome and costly to support both.

The topic is not a theoretical issue – I consider it the critical enabler for the growth of SaaS. The majority of ISVs are facing a tough challenge when it comes to offering SaaS as they and their customers are looking to cut costs, yet to offer a SaaS portfolio an ISV is faced with a potentially large upfront investment needed to offer a SaaS version of their products. I will expand on the ISV challenge in a separate post.

That is not a pipe dream – the first application platforms that supported this proposition (Magic Software’s uniPaaS) hit the market almost a year ago, and just recently PaaS provider Longjump announced an On-premise version of their PaaS. There’s even persistent speculation that Force.com would follow suite.Clearly, on-demand business requires a different business approach than on-premise – but I view it rather as a super-set than a mutually exclusive path. And as we see in the SaaS integration business, many vendors offer a SaaS pricing models to on-premise installs – and doing so for applications should not be much different (assuming customers provide a compliant infrastructure and operate it).

Now, consider the proposition in which the same application platform (and consequently application) supports various deployment modes (single and multi tenancy, Fat, Browser or RIA client). The Client appliance aspect becomes immaterial. A software vendor using such a platform can unify its development and support cycles and have a single cycle of updates and upgrades. The SaaS hosting center (and not necessarily only one) becomes yet another “on premise” customer, hopefully with many more users than a “regular” on premise customer. And customers have the power of choice and can evolve and migrate their software usage in accordance with the evolving business requirements.

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Posted in Mindshare, Uncategorized

Tagged Application Infrastructure, Application Platforms, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Jongjump, Magic Software, PaaS, Platform as a Service, SaaS

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