SaaS Model breeds cloud computing alternatives

As the saying goes, same. Just as former independent software developers (independent Software VENDOR,ISV) have extended the software portfolio from a single product to an integration suite in an effort to gain a stronger market position, today's software is the service (software-as-a-service, SaaS) Vendors are also leveraging a range of new SaaS platforms to launch the same strategy.

As more and more organizations are willing to adopt SaaS alternatives to traditional in-house deployment software products-including large enterprises and SMEs (small-_and_ mid-size BUSINESSES,SMB)-they are also struggling to take advantage of the basic capabilities of these on-demand applications, Develop your own solution, or more easily integrate multiple SaaS solutions.

While most people associate SaaS with an independent, on-demand application software, For example, Google's applications for collaboration and productivity applications and salesforce.com customer Relationship Management (CRM) and sales automation solutions, but today almost every application category has a corresponding SaaS alternatives, this is an indisputable fact.

According to statistics, Thinkstrategies consulting Company's SaaS Showplace includes more than 700 SaaS providers, providing more than 3,000 SaaS solutions covering 75 horizontal and vertical applications. A survey conducted jointly by Thinkstrategies and Cutter Consortium in November 2007 found that the vast majority (53.8%) of respondents were using horizontal SaaS applications; over one-fifth of them (21.5% The respondents are using SaaS solutions for specific industries, and another one-fourth of the objects surveyed are using both. The survey also found that nearly three-fourths (72.3%) of respondents were using SaaS solutions to meet unmet needs, while remaining respondents were abandoning legacy applications and replacing them with new SaaS solutions.

As customers become more receptive to SaaS alternatives, the number of SaaS vendors is increasing dramatically. The "Gold rush" effect has made the market more competitive and confusing as many customers try to clear their head from a large number of SaaS solutions. In addition, as customers become more aware of SaaS alternatives, their expectations are rising; they are trying to make more strategic purchasing decisions to control the number of vendors they want to manage, and to ensure that the SaaS solution you choose can easily integrate.

In response, the SaaS market is also experiencing a maturing process, similar to the changes that have occurred in the traditional software industry. Today's SaaS platform is based on the following three factors: multi-tenant architecture, Third-party integration technology, and collaborative business partners (also called "Ecosystems").

Just as legacy application leaders such as Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP used software kits to meet a large part of the customer's application needs, today's SaaS companies are struggling to get a bigger share of the fast-growing market through their platform strategy. These platforms target the ambitious SaaS vendors and user organizations.

These ambitious SaaS vendors can leverage the SaaS platform to accelerate their development processes and reduce costs and time-to-market. SaaS companies can also overcome customers ' concerns about integration issues if they are in the same trench as a veteran platform provider.

User organizations can use these platforms to develop their own internal applications so that they can work with previously existing applications. In the SaaS Survey of Cutter Consortium, One-fourth (24.6%) of respondents claimed that their chosen SaaS provider could provide platform functionality. Nearly One-third (35.4%) of respondents said their choice of SaaS companies was able to provide platform and single point solutions.

SaaS Platform providers and strategies

Salesforce.com's appexchange partner ecosystem and force.com Development Toolkit pioneered this shift. AppExchange is the salesforce.com Third-party integration and marketing switching center, and the Force.com Development Toolkit enables software developers and independent software developers (ISVs) to base Salesforce.com itself is used to build the development code and framework of the on-demand application software to develop SaaS solutions. The platform also allows these developers and ISVs to integrate their applications with the salesforce.com application software.

Force.com fully utilizes the apex code of the salesforce.com. Salesforce.com's integrated platform functionality is based on a range of application protocol interfaces (APIs), design specifications, service provisioning, and support requirements. Force.com allows ISVs to focus on features and functionality, allowing them to develop applications more quickly. Force.com provides ISVs and developers with the basic elements needed to develop and deliver SaaS business application software. Force.com also supports the service delivery requirements of ISVs. By encouraging many ISVs to develop applications on force.com, and to connect their applications to appexchange,salesforce.com, it is also expanding its sphere of influence to other application software markets.

Salesforce.com recently collaborated with Google, which also has a development platform, to allow both platforms to be compatible with each other, and to extend its sphere of influence to other market segments. Other SaaS companies have also launched a platform strategy. The NetFlex platform developed by NetSuite company allows ISVs and channel partners to enable NetSuite applications to meet specific industry requirements. Combined with the technical basis, the NetSuite platform benefits from the growing number of third-party partners in the ecosystem, and increasingly perfect.

Amazon's simple Storage service (Amazon S3) is also helping to expand the platform market, which provides ISVs and user organizations with Low-cost development kits and test-bed environments. Amazon's S3 service allows these developers to access the same data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its global network of Web sites. This service, along with other web-based development environments, has Utility the concept of "common computing" (Computing), but this concept is now more prevalent in the parlance of "cloud computing" (Cloud Computing).

Purchasing should be prudent

As many organizations used to evaluate legacy application developers based on the technical capabilities of their developers and the breadth of their product mix and partner networks, user organizations should now evaluate SaaS vendors based on web-based features, ease-of-use, integration and development capabilities, and partner ecosystems.

This work is particularly important as the SaaS solution that the user organization strives to procure is able to meet a wide range of business requirements. Instead of ordering an independent single point solution to many SaaS vendors, you should focus on a small number of strategic SaaS vendors to reduce the time, effort, and cost of integrating the solutions. This also allows users to shorten the time to create value and leverage the platform to develop customized solutions to meet their business needs.