Is SaaS Dead? No. Neither is Debate.
We’ve had email dead, resumes dead, wikis dead themes, now it’s apparently time for the SaaS is Dead meme, thanks to a recently published Gartner report. My favorite quote from the report: SaaS is not a panacea, and companies need to evaluate and understand the trade-offs that SaaS presents Indeed. Here’s another quote from Gartner [...]
NetSuite vs SAP … Round #n. A Game Changer?
In my recent Suites post I said there were exactly 1.5 (one and a half) integrated full business solutions (SaaS Suite, SaaS All-In-One, SaaS ERP, SaaS SMB ERP – take your pick or create a new one) offered as a service. The one in that equation was NetSuite, and the half is SAP’s Business ByDesign. [...]
Redux: Will Google Enter the Business Applications Market?
If you think I am here to spill the beans, you’re wrong. On a purely speculative level, if there is some news to come, and if there is an embargo related to it, then here @ CloudAve we respect that. And it’s all a big IF. So no, I am simply dusting off an old [...]
Is the Cloud term an asset or just marketing hype?
A few things came together for me this week around the Cloud term. I spent time with one of my best customers discussing online accounting, what we should do to improve the product we represent in the UK, and how we should position to beat the incumbent in the small business market, Sage. But the [...]
The SaaS applications wiki – open for business
Over on AccountingWEB’s forums (you need an AWEB account to log in, but it’s free) there have been some heavy exchanges discussing the barriers to adoption of Cloud solutions by accountants in practice in the UK. I found it interesting, but sadly the dialogue has been too vendor driven, with plenty of verbiage from the [...]
EuroCloud UK members making sense of Cloud standards and security
The newly formed EuroCloud UK group held their first member meeting a week ago at the Thistle City Barbican Hotel – a panel led group discussion on Cloud standards and security. Chaired by Phil Wainewright, the panel experts were Dr. Guy Bunker, independent consultant and blogger, formerly Symantec’s chief scientist and co-author of ENISA‘s cloud [...]
Salesforce shows the future of enterprise collaboration – but have they got the branding right?
A month ago on Monday 7 December I was sitting in the London version of the CloudForce2 Partner Summit, and then stricken by a virus overnight, I watched Marc Benioff livestreamed for the 2 hours and 15 minutes of his keynote in the general customer session on the following day. It sounds like he did [...]
Can Cloud vendors move beyond the terminology debate?
I recently mentioned Richard Messik’s great post castigating Cloud vendors on their jargon overload in the panel discussions at Softworld back in October. Over on AccountingWEB there has been some vigorous debate around the Cloud issues in discussion threads on whether accountants should be talking to their clients about Cloud Computing, the business case for [...]
Does AccountingWEB get SaaS?
Let me start this post by saying I’m a big fan of AccountingWEB (in the UK, I don’t particularly follow the US edition). For the accountants in business and in practice or anyone interested in the sector it’s one of the key resources to read – they cover everything from tax to technology, but it’s [...]
Swiss Re – One of the Smart Companies
On Monday In Zurich during SOMESSO‘s Web 2.0 University™ based masterclass delivered by Jim Benson, one of the attendees related her company’s adoption of Social Media. I was soaking up the material and offering Jim a little help, as we have just started to represent Hinchcliffe and Web 2.0 University™ in the UK. One of [...]
Will EuroCloud Provide Some Clarity and Direction?
One of my recent “quotes of the week” was Lord Puttnam’s excellent: “Technology can only serve as a bridge, never as a destination.” In recent weeks there has been plenty of activity around the Cloud Computing bridge with way too much emphasis on jargon and technicalities. The Intellect SaaS Group has started and is just [...]
SaaS v. On-premises Software: Which One is More Green?
(The following is a guest post by Chris Thorman @ SoftwareAdvice.com) In case you haven’t heard (or aren’t obsessively following IT trends like we are), the great trend in software is the evolution from traditional “on-premises” software (e.g. client/server software installed at the office) to Software as a Service (SaaS) (i.e. web-based applications that are [...]
SaaS and Religion: the Tenancy Debates. Do Customers Care?
(Warning: this is a long post. Only read it when sitting in a comfortable chair. Or a pool lounge, holding your CrunchPad.) Two recent posts by Enterprise Social Software vendors Jive and Atlassian set up a huge debate amongst my fellow Enterprise Irregulars. Here’s the money-quote from Jive: It’s not so long ago that it [...]
Netbooks Emerges from Hibernation as WorkingPoint: SaaS for SMB, with Nicer UI but Reduced Functionality.
(This post is now updated, see bottom)Netbooks, provider of an Integrated SaaS Business Suite for Very Small Businesses came out of hibernation with a new name: WorkingPoint. In the never-ending debate of all-in-one vs. best-of-breed I tend to represent the “old-school” which believes in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business [...]
SAP’s On-Demand Portfolio: Powerpoint for Now
John Wookey has a tough job. The former Oracle Exec, currently EVP @ SAP, the Enterprise Software leader is supposed to charter SAP’s foray into On-Demand – in a company whose bread-and-butter is clearly in installed applications and which still largely considers a threat to its traditional lucrative business. He spent the first 6 months [...]
