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The tech blogosphere is always buzzing with news about various Amazon cloud offerings. But, Joyent is quietly laying foundation to become a strong player in the Enterprise Cloud segment. They already boast some big clients like CNN, Disney, Linked In, Paypal, GAP, etc.. Through their accelerator product, they cater to companies of all sizes from single person facebook app shops to Linked In with billion monthly views. From time to time, I write about various infrastructure providers and their products. In this post, I am going to briefly talk about Joyent and why this company excites me in the first place.

Joyent, founded in 2004, is a California based Infrastructure as a Service company offering cloud computing infrastructure and storage. Their main product is Joyent Accelerator, virtualized servers built on top of 8+ cores, 32+ GB RAM with a wide array of NAS based storage. Accelerators run custom open solaris OS on powerful Sun machines. Their use of BSD userland on Solaris kernel offers better compatibility and stability. Their use of ZFS for storage ensures the reliability of user data. The accelerator offerings start from 256 MB of RAM and goes all the way to 32 GB, serving customers ranging from single person blog sites to startups to enterprises. In all they have more than 13,000 clients with about 40-50 fortune 500 companies. They have four data centers in US and are planning for more around the world. Unlike Google App Engine or Amazon's offerings, Joyent accelerators use open standards based file system that doesn't require any application rewrites or data lock-in. Joyent accelerators can be managed without any complexity of Amazon's EC2 instances. Joyent accelerators can run applications written in languages like Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Erlang running on frameworks like Tomcat, Gigaspaces XAP, Axiom Stack, GlassFish, CakePHP, Symfony, Drupal, Django, Merb, Ruby on Rails, CouchDB, .NET in mono, Ejabberd, SunGridEngine, etc.. They certainly offer a pretty powerful scalable infrastructure taking care of the needs of startups to enterprises. Here is the story of an enterpreneur who scaled efficiently using Joyent's infrastructure.

Their other two products are Joyent Connector and BingoDisk. Joyent Connector is an Office 2.0 kind of SaaS application offering personal information manager tools and file storage. Bingo Disk is their scalable cloud based storage offering access through WebDAV open protocol.

But what excites me most about Joyent is their open approach. They are not only sticking to open formats and protocols, they have also open sourced their SaaS application, Joyent Connector. You can take the source code and run it from any data center or any cloud provider. They have also open sourced some of their tools including the monitoring tool, DTrace. The most important part of their open source strategy is their plan to release Bingo Disk under one of the open source licenses. Even though they don't have a date for the release yet, we can expect it to happen in the near future.

Joyent's products may not be as fashionable like other cloud based vendors but their approach to openness is very important in convincing customers that their data is safe and they are not locked in with the vendor. This approach could go a long way in convincing wary enterprise customers towards Cloud Computing.

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Webroot E-Mail Security SaaS Provides Improved Security from E-mail Threats.

Webroot E-Mail Security which will provide better protection from e-mail threats, was released today by Webroot. It has been made keeping in mind enterprises, SMB's and individuals as well. According to Peter Watkins, the CEO of Webroot, “Security delivered as a service is an effective means of reducing total cost of ownership and maximizing limited resources. It allows organizations to focus on business critical functions rather than having to worry about the continuous management and expenses associated with traditional hardware or software solutions”.

Data Center Services Provider to Offer Oracle SaaS.

A tier 4 data center services provider, Ctrl S has announced the strategic partnership with Oracle. Ctrl S will provide on-demand software and hosting services for Oracle products through a SaaS model. P Shridhar Reddy, chief managing director, Ctrl S said, "We have always been engaged in providing the best services to our clients. Now, by partnering with Oracle, we will be able to provide many innovative and cost effective services to our current and prospective customers.”

Firms save up to 40% on CRM using SaaS says Gartner.

According to Gartner, by deploying CRM applications via SaaS model help organizations experience project savings between 25% and 40%. "This would indicate that the role of ESPs in designing, measuring and driving CRM process improvements will diminish at enterprises deploying SaaS solutions for CRM," said Gartner.

Microsoft Offers Free Security, Pulls Live OneCare.

Microsoft has announced that it will stop selling Windows Live OneCare, a SaaS suite that offers maintenance, backup and performance by the end of June 2009. Instead it plans to offer a light weight security package called “Morro” for free.

Financial Advisors Simplify, Systemize and Increase Production With smarshCRM.

smarshCRM, a state of the art web based CRM service designed for financial advisors was launched yesterday by Smarsh. By using the SaaS model, the users have access to and can secure vital plan data at anytime. "smarshCRM gives advisors the technological platform to manage their practices with efficiency, which in turn leads to greater productivity and, ultimately, greater profitability," said Stephen Marsh, founder and CEO of Smarsh.

Creating Do-It-Yourself Databases with Caspio.

Caspio has raised the bar for other SaaS vendors as its users will now be able to build applications through a point and click process for Web forms, registraton for classes or signups for sweepstakes.

InteQ Announces the Release of InfraDesk, an On Demand Service Desk Solution.

InfraDesk 5.0 , an on demand service desk solution was released today by InteQ. "The response we have received has been phenomenally positive in direct respect to the product offerings, specifically the investment required in direct relation to the features and modules included upon implementation," stated Bradford Winkler, Vice President of Sales & Marketing SaaS Solutions, InteQ. "InfraDesk offers a unique opportunity for organizations across multiple verticals to successfully adopt a comprehensive service desk solution through a SaaS-based delivery model."

Avitage and iCentera Team to Offer Best-in-Class Sales-Enablement Solution that Enables SMBs to Sell More within Weeks.

Avitage and iCentera, a provider of on-demand portal software for sales enablement, announced the integration of their respective sales enablement systems to provide a cost effective solution for SMB customers. "We're very pleased to have accomplished this integration," states Jim Burns CEO of Avitage.

Launch of online accounting for freelance IT consultants.

An online accounting solution was launched today by the name of FreeAgent following the SaaS trend, for freelancers and small businesses. FreeAgent Central, the independed software company will be launching it this week in Edinburgh, UK. The software has a clean and simple design and will be subscription based.

Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5.

An upgraded version of Sun’s Netbeans was released today with a swab of features for web developers using popular scripting languages including PHP. The company has also boosted its support for JavaScript and CSS also.

Marketing Automation Leader Marketo Announces Marketing Asset Management Capabilities.

New marketing asset management capabilities have been added to Marketo Lead Management, a flagship product of Marketo. "With Marketo Lead Management, marketers now have a place to store and manage all their marketing assets and can see exactly which prospects are downloading which pieces of content at every stage of the revenue cycle.” said Phil Fernandez, President and CEO of Marketo.

Cloud Sherpas Selects myOneLogin for Secure Single Sign-On.

A cloud computing systems integrator, Cloud Sherpas has chosen TriCipher for delivering strong authentication and identity federation to its portfolio of enterprise ready cloud computing solutions.  "We're guiding large organizations to the cloud every day," said Michael Cohn, CEO at Cloud Sherpas. "TriCipher's myOneLogin allows us to create 'Private Clouds' through its federation capabilities and deliver secure single sign-on across the portfolio of cloud solutions we offer to enterprise customers."

Crashes are bad, reporting them is good: it helps developers fix the issues.  So far so good, but lately the Mozilla Crash Reporter appears to be a bit overzelous:  it keeps on reporting crashes when there are none.

A few times a day it pops up after what appears to be an ordinary shutdown: i.e. I just closed Firefox myself, and it went smoothly – or so I thought. 

What’s even stranger is that I’ve been experiencing this behaviour both on a Vista and an XP computer, with two entirely different user configurations (i.e. different set of add-ons).

If I have to pick, I’d rather put up with bogus error reports than real crashes in the middle of work…but I’m still curious.

Over on SaaS blogs, Sinclair Schuller posted saying that the current economic downturn might have a silver lining for traditional software vendors. The logic went like this;

• Traditional vendors are used to making huge money
• This makes it difficult for them to convert to a SaaS delivery model (think sales cannibalisation here)
• Their revenue is starting to dry up as CAPEX is being cut by customers
• Given an already decreasing revenue line, the concerns around SaaS are less valid
• Ergo - ISVs should consider a move to SaaS during this downturn

Sinclair states that;

If your revenue streams are drying up, it might be wise to look at a SaaS model. There is an equilibrium point where the significantly less expensive SaaS model will slow or even stop customer attrition. Yes, your revenue stream might be smaller, but it won’t be disappearing and you still have active accounts. Leveraging this scenario to move to SaaS is very appealing to me because it helps solve an immediate problem within a couple of quarters

Which all sounds kind of good apart from the fact that;

• Most ISVs, whether they admit it or not, are in denial about SaaS. They consider it either irrelevant or a passing fad . Their entry into the on-demand space is half hearted at best
• The conversion from traditional to SaaS models costs money - boards and shareholders are unlikely to be willing to expend on what is to be seen as a high risk punt at best
• SaaS subverts the traditional sales channels, traditional marketing approaches and traditional ISV cost structures yet more fuel for the "stick to our guns" fire
• First generation SaaS vendors aren't completely removed from the current downturn - again is a board likely to approve an about face that puts an ISV into direct competition with a vendor displaying downward profitability trends?

Conceptually Sinclair is right - in the same way as he'd be right telling the triumvirate of sick auto makers (Ford, GM and Chrysler) that they'd be better off getting together and concentrating on producing small, compact hybrid vehicles that did 1000 miles per gallon. It may make sense but there's a significant DNA mismatch here. So to have SaaS start-ups got an entirely different make up to traditional vendors.

Yes, yes I know the big boys are making attempts to enter the on-demand world - but given the resource the big players have behind them and the snails pace at which they're innovating down the SaaS line, it's hard not to believe that these forays are half hearted - at best. As ZDNet commented;

The bigger challenge for [beyond the technical one] will be that elusive on-demand business model. Look at Salesforce.com’s margins (which are starting to look as negative as its stock price), and Netsuite’s struggles, and you can see what SAP is trying to avoid.

So the writing may indeed be on the wall for traditional vendors - but unfortunately it's written in a language they don't understand.

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OK, this may be a bit of a stretch, but I really think the newly released themes for Gmail do more than appeal to our senses. They actually have a very practical application: differentiating between multiple Gmail accounts.  

I have branded (Google Apps, using my own domain) accounts for business and personal use, and a few generic @gmail.com types for subscriptions, lists, online purchases.  It’s all neatly tied together by Gmail Manager, the excellent Firefox extension.  Even then I sometimes find myself typing an email in the wrong account window.  Here’s the solution: give all your Gmail accounts its own distinctive theme.

 

I don’t really care for the fancy themes, but at least the top row are all subtle, minimalist styles.  Pick one for each of your accounts, you’ll get used to the colors fast and never mix up your accounts again.

Well.. almost.  As usual, Google rolled out this new feature to the generic, @gmail.com accounts only.  Google Apps users will have to wait – lets’ hope not too long.

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This is the third post in the SaaS Risk Reduction Series. In the previous post, I talked about not keeping all eggs in one basket. There are people who will not consider it as an important aspect of risk reduction. Even though I disagree with the idea, they do have very valid points. However, I don't think anyone will disagree with today's topic related to risk reduction. I am going to talk about the importance of considering open formats when selecting a SaaS vendors.

Open formats are those file formats whose specifications are published openly and are not restricted to a single vendor or a software or a web application. With the open availability of specifications, the data in the open file formats can be accessed from any software/application that supports the file specification. You are not locked in with a single vendor's software or web application. Examples of open formats include plain ascii text, html, odf, pdf, dvi, rtf, ogg, png, etc..

While selecting a SaaS vendor, it is important for us to ensure that the vendor will allow us to export our data in at least one of the various open formats available for the particular kind of data. For example, Google Docs supports supports export of documents into text, html, openoffice, PDF, RTF and Word formats. Zoho Writer goes even further and support Latex and DOCX (purists, please don't pounce on me for including DOCX in the list. Even I have my own reservations about it but that debate is for another forum) formats along with the ones supported by Google.

The option to export data in open formats is very important in the SaaS world. Already, we are putting our data into the third party data centers and, thereby, giving up some control over our data for the sake of other additional conveniences offered by SaaS. On top of it, if the vendor locks in the data without giving an option to export it into one of the open formats, it is just a disaster waiting to happen. We can as well put our company's bank information in an open website. Once we put our data with such a SaaS vendor, we are struck with the vendor forever and we will be at their mercy when it comes to pricing and service reliability. No smart business owner would ever want to put their business at such a risk.

I strongly suggest that the users also make sure that the SaaS vendors allow them to easily export their data in one of the open formats with just a few clicks. It is important that the SaaS users are not bogged down with a complicated export process. Just say no to SaaS vendors who don't offer an option to export the data in open formats.

PS: I am intentionally keeping this series without any technical details. The goal of this series is to help small business owners finetune their SaaS strategy.

Previous articles in the series:

• SaaS Risk Reduction - Don't Keep All Eggs in One Basket
• SaaS Risk Reduction Series

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Axway and Wipro Announce Strategic Alliance to Provide SaaS B2Bi Offering.

Axway and Wipro have announced a strategic alliance for offering B2Bi and EDI managed services using a SaaS model. "SaaS models enable businesses to get what they need to support innovation quickly, without making capital investments in additional infrastructure," said Srini Pallia, global head and vice president, Business Technology Services, Wipro Limited.

CA Intros Three SaaS Offerings.

CA has announced three new SaaS offering across Enterprise It Management and Governance portfolios for helping customers "maximize the business value of their software implementations.” The new services from the On-Demand Business Unit are CA Clarity PPM On-Demand, CA GRC Manager On-Demand and CA Instant Recovery On-Demand.

SPS Intros SaaS-Based Trading Partner Applications.

SPS Commerce has introduced a new product line of trading partner applications. The suite of outsourced B2Bi services will help connect every partner of the company in retail supply chain. “With SPS’ Scan and Pack Service, ASNs take seconds, not hours.” said Archie Black, CEO of SPS.

Transoft International Secures Latest SaaS Solutions through Peak 10.

Peak 10 Inc has collaborated with Transoft International Inc, a leading currency supply chain management solution provider.  "We recognize that SaaS is growing rapidly across all industries, and we are investing in our infrastructure to bring these proven options to our valued clients," said Bo H. Holmgreen, president at Transoft. "Peak 10's infrastructure and services combined with their expertise in compliance allowed us to receive the perfect solution to meet our needs and further increase the reliability of our SaaS solutions."

Thing5 Expands Relationship with La Quinta Inns and Suites.

According to recent news, Thing5 has announced that a cost saving telecommunications platform is being deployed across the entire La Quinta Inns and Suites portfolio. "Our initial deployments of Thing5's hosted solution have proven that telecommunications is an area that can be easily upgraded while simultaneously reducing costs and making a positive impact on guest services," commented La Quinta's Chief Operating Officer Angelo Lombardi.

Enerjet (Formally Known as New Air and Tours) Selects Ramco's OnDemand (SaaS) M&E & Financials.

In recent news, Ramco announced that Enerjet has selected its suite of Aviation Maintenance and Enterprise Financial Applications. "Ramco's Aviation Suite will provide Enerjet with critical information and real-time analysis for proactive decision-making. These products will support our ongoing business process improvement initiatives allowing us to optimize our resources and continue to provide the most reliable cost effective service in the industry.” said Darcy Morgan - co-founder and Vice-president, Enerjet.

MXsense Launches Web-Based Email Archiving Solution.

MXsense Solutions Inc has announced availability of its email archiving solution designed for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook environments. The solution will be delivered through SaaS and can preserve an unlimited amount of email data along with various other tools.

DocZone.com® Announces DocZone DITA.

DocZone.com has announced the release of DocZone DITA, a new SaaS solution for creating, managing and publishing DITA content. "After researching available options, we selected DocZone owing to their unique combination of robust functionality and affordable pricing model. We look forward to realizing the cost savings from our DocZone DITA implementation for years to come" said Burt Courtier, Manager of Documentation/Software Integration at Epson America, Inc.

Amazon adds content distribution to Web Services options.

Amazon Web Services today released CloudFront, content network distribution network integrated with S3. CloudFront will be able to replicate content stored in the S3 system between 14 different data centers and to send users accessing the content to the closest distribution point. This will help reduce latency and increase performance.

Non-Profit Organizations Switch From Microsoft Great Plains to NetSuite for End-to-End Business Automation at a Fraction of the Cost.

According to recent news, some of the latest NGOs have shifted from Microsoft Great Plains to NetSuite as announced by the latter. "Most companies will implement NetSuite for the back office first and then expand, but we did it backwards because our need for case management was so immediate," said Kevin Harding, Director of IT, Imagine!

North Jersey Federal Credit Union Selects Dynamic Marketing Systems to Automate, Support Marketing Initiatives.

Dynamic Marketing Systems, the provider of Web enabled marketing resource management solutions has announced that it has selected North Jersey Federal Credit Unions’ web enabled Micro Merchant to support the Credit Union’s marketing program. "Having an online, automated marketing resource management solution saves us a tremendous amount of time and reduces costs when developing promotions. With the help of Dynamic Marketing Systems, we have been able to implement the Micro Merchant software and train our staff efficiently on the product leading to a greater streamlining of our marketing processes." said Maria Alves-Schemetow, vice president of marketing for North Jersey Federal Credit Union.

Quantix Introduces a Groundbreaking Monitoring Solution.

Quantix announced yesterday the launch of its groundbreaking new Global Enterprise Monitoring solution. "With its alerting architecture and ability to provide innovative reporting, GEM will alert businesses prior to any critical system failures that will cause significant losses to any business' bottom line.” Quantix reports.

Oracle’s Siebel CRM and Oracle® CRM On Demand Each Named A Leader in Record-Centric Customer Service Software By Independent Research Firm.

According to Forrester research’s October 2008 independent report, “The Forrester Wave: Customer Service Software Solutions, Q4 2008”, Oracle’s Siebel CRM and Oracle® CRM On Demand have been positioned as a leader in the record centric category. “Through constant innovation and unyielding dedication to investment, Oracle’s Siebel CRM and Oracle CRM On Demand each will continue to be a leader and give organizations the best choice and value for powerful customer service functionalities.” said Oracle Senior Vice President of CRM Anthony Lye.

Marketsync Releases direcTouch 2.0.

A SaaS application by the name of direcTouch 2.0 will be available as announced by Marketsync Inc. "The latest version of direcTouch provides our Sales and Marketing teams with features that allow greater flexibility and consistency in conducting our lead development activities and improves insight into the effectiveness of our ever evolving communication programs" reports Tjarko Leifer, General Manager, REX&Co.

Palo Alto Software Announces Complete Email Management Solution for Small Businesses Nationwide.

SPAM control for Email Center PRO 2.0 with SpamAssassin will now be available as announced by Palo Alto Software. "SpamAssassin gives our users even more functionality and puts Email Center Pro in a position to meet all of a small business' email needs," said Palo Alto Software CEO Sabrina Parsons. "With new features like this coming out week after week, Palo Alto Software is thrilled about its opportunity to relieve the typical pain point that email causes for small businesses."

There has been much discussion on the blogosphere over Google's recent decision to scale back employee benefits (although many would consider a note asking employees not to take cafeteria food away to eat at home is less of a cut back than an articulation of the concept of employee respect for the workplace). People have been waxing poetic abut this being the start of the end, that once a small business scale's up significantly, all those nice little culture building ideas - the food, the games, the drinks and the pen workspaces - become impediments to running a successful business.

I came across a video made by the gang at Atlassian, possibly the company touted as best extolling the virtues that Google did when it was small, personal and... more fun?

Now Atlassian is one of those organisations that I put up on a pedestal. From all aspects - funding, profitability, growth, culture - they excel. Perhaps it's in part a result of being away from the Silicon Valley echo chamber which has let them create their own distinctive culture and allowed them to spend less time worrying abut the VCs, the competitors and the endless string of Web conferences that Valley companies seem to have on their agendas.

It's a pretty exciting and inspirational video. It certainly made me want to go visit Atlassian when I'm next in town, but it also left me wondering - I'm sure a video shot at Google eight or so years ago would have had the same sort of zest - and now Google are being held up (by some) as an example of the dehumanising nature of big business.

Getting back to the title of this post, does an open and creative culture in a small business automatically become decadent when transferred to a larger business where there are shareholders and other stakeholders to answer to? Or is there a third way? I'd be really keen to hear from readers who have experienced life at a big business that inspires them, keeps them thinking creatively, doesn't encompass rigidity and pretty much doesn't suck?

Examples anyone?

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• Presenting a crappy blog:  Central Desktop
• Presenting an excellent blog: Central Desktop

But wait, they are one and the same.   How is that possible?

Central Desktop, the startup that makes a pretty good SMB-focused (so far) SaaS Collaboration platform announced it’s expansion into the Enterprise market today.  I don’t want to analyze the actual business move, Isaac, the Founder & CEO does a pretty good job here – let’s just talk about the announcement.

I almost fell off my chair when I read the Press Release: not because of the content and style (used to it), but where it appeared.  This  fluffy, pompous, buzzword-stuffed classic Press Release is actually not worse then the typical boilerplate PR stuff: next-generation… in today’s economic climate... embrace the SaaS model: enough for me to tune out, I can’t read through this.  Why companies keep on paying for such crap is beyond me - but fine, let’s keep PR to their own channels, dont’ let them hijack your company blog.

Just today I’ve read a good post over @ HubSpot on how Inbound is the new marketing, and Social Media is a key component in it.  This PR piece is neither social media nor inbound marketing – it’s a deterrent, if you ask me. 

The funny thing is, I’ve known Isaac, Central Desktop’s Founder and CEO for years – from the time when they were a bot-strapped, 2-person shop with a good product and a dream, wondering how long they can last on a few pennies.  He is articulate, smart, and a good blogger – hack, he even took Google to the task. He certainly does not need such “help” – or is there a law that startups have to turn to this once they get funded?

Just as I got ready with my rant, I read the second post, this time from Isaac again.  It’s clear, concise, explains the rationale behind the enterprise move – it’s exactly what it supposed to be.  Isaac, I’m glad you claimed your blog back, don’t ever let those PR hacks anywhere close to it again! 

Startup Entrepreneurs, remember: your blog has a voice, a personality, but only as long as it really comes from you. Don’t let PR fools hijack it – but if you have the urge to splurge (), at least find a PR guru who actually “gets” social media.

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I am a strong advocate of using Cloud Computing in Science. I had talked about it in my post on LHC Computing and, again, when I wrote about Mathematica embracing the clouds. Through Jinesh's post on AWS Blog, I came across a whitepaper that explains how one can run MATLAB, proprietary technical computing software from Mathworks, on Amazon EC2. The whitepaper can be downloaded here.

MATLAB is a very powerful, although proprietary, tool for running complex numerical computations, data analysis and plotting. It is widely used by academic community for scientific calculations. It is based on a MATLAB language called M-Code and it can be used as an interpretive shell or using a script. The language is very simple but a powerful one. It can be used from simple classical mechanics problems to signal analysis to circuit analysis to chemical engg computations to systems biology. Such a widespread use has resulted in MATLAB being used by more than a million users, mostly in the academia.

With the ability to run MATLAB on EC2, scientists could run parallel computations on a collection of EC2 instances. This will save them valuable grant money and time as they can just fire up the needed EC2 instances, run their programs and shut down the instances as soon as they are done. They need not buy expensive high end computers or wait for their turn to use computing resources in some large research institutions. Use of cloud computing, with its utility nature, can help scientists focus on science instead of worrying about finding the necessary computational resources.

As I have told in my article on LHC computing, I am very much interested in hearing about how scientists use cloud computing in their research work. We strongly welcome comments from such people and encourage them to share their story as guest posts in this blog.

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