Mobile spawned Baas behind-the-scenes services can also have great as

Recently, domestic services for mobile developers to fire up, like seven of cattle cloud storage, sharesdk have been recognized by the capital market, and got the investment, and Baidu, Ali also frequently, launched a series of convenient mobile developer services, in foreign countries, launched to developer services in emerging enterprises, There are also a few successful financing. Their success is all connected with a concept called Baas, what is Baas, and why is it recognized by the capital market? This article tries to answer this question.

This article will be divided into three parts, the first part of the definition of Baas, analysis of its characteristics, as well as the relationship with other AAs; the second part of the Baas and developers, why to use Baas, do not do; the third part of the Baas imagination Space, why the capital market so optimistic about them. Enter the text below.

Part I: What is Baas?

A. Definition of Baas

According to Wikipedia's definition, Baas is the backend as a service, translated into Chinese is the back-end is the service, it originated from the Mbaas (mobile backend as a service), that is, mobile back-end is the service.

The so-called back end is the server side or the network end, general mobile applications need to be networked, the developers must prepare their own servers and develop server-side programs, but the backend can now be provided as a service, and developers need to use the provided APIs or SDK to not worry about the backend, Can focus on the front-end interaction design and application of the core functions, thereby saving a lot of time and energy and money.

It is worth mentioning that Baas relies on cloud computing, so there are most of the characteristics of cloud services, in fact, we call it "mobile cloud services" may be better understood.

Most Baas startups were created in 2011 and the global Baas market in 2012 will be estimated at $216.5 million trillion.

PS: Someone narrowly understood Baas as push, social component and cloud storage, but I think this understanding is too narrow, the connotation of backend is far more than these three. Here will backend understood as behind the scenes, that is, not directly with the consumers, but in the app in a variety of indirect forms presented.

B. Characteristics of Baas

What is the difference between Baas and other transition services for developers as well? Here we analyze the characteristics of Baas and help us to understand it better.

Must be a network-related service. Some transition services are not related to the network, so it is not baas, such as the game engine, the use of large 3D engine development games generally require a pay authorization, but this does not need networking, so it is not Baas services.

Second, must embed in the terminal application, indirectly provides the service for the consumer. So cloud testing, though also dependent on the cloud, does not belong to the Baas service.

Third, it must be flexible and expandable. This is in fact the characteristics of cloud services, so, not cloud network services are not Baas.

Four, according to the use quantity charge. This is actually a typical business model of the cloud era. In these services, like water and electricity, money can be used, not to stop, it is so simple.

Baas, which encapsulates some of the cloud's capabilities, makes it a packaged sale for mobile or web apps, or, in other words, puts the functionality required by mobile or Web applications on the cloud and provides it in the form of cloud software.

Ps:baas has a major misunderstanding in the country, some people call it and mobile middleware is a competitive relationship, it will impact on the latter, but this is a misunderstanding of the concept of both, the author interviewed several domestic mobile middleware manufacturers, including digital paradise, Appcan and the war star of the relevant technical leaders have denied this statement.

C. A glimpse of domestic Baas services

The most basic Baas service is cloud push, cloud storage and social components of these three kinds, other cloud-based services such as map APIs, speech recognition, image recognition, as long as the characteristics of the above, also belong to the Baas.

Domestic Baas startups mostly focus on a certain function, such as Aurora Push, seven Neu Yun storage, SHARESDK, and large companies will be BAAS services as its public cloud composition services, such as Baidu Open Cloud and Aliyun. It is worth mentioning that Baidu for mobile developers Baas Service started late, but its relatively perfect service, it appears that the company's internal attention.

Other such as Map API, in addition to Baidu, in China, there are also the supply of German, voice recognition is to provide the flight.

D. Relationships with PAAs, SaaS, IaaS

All *aas essentially sell the front * as a service, they are all new business models brought about by cloud computing, such as the SaaS that is now moving towards the masses: Software as a service, selling software as a service, or moving traditional software to the cloud, where users pay by the time they use, Microsoft Office 365 is typical.

Most Baas services are inherently SaaS because the APIs provided are software services, but cloud storage involves PAAs, so Baas is a separate division of services for specific areas and SaaS, which is a branch of cloud services.

Part II: BAAS and mobile developers

A. The value that Baas brings to mobile developers

As mentioned earlier, Baas to developers is the savings of time and money, the reason is that the cloud services relative to the traditional network services price and mode advantages, the second is to save developers themselves to develop and build server-side programs overhead. In particular, the difficulty of the latter tends to transcend human imagination.

The reason for this is that the mobile Internet is unique. Mobile apps are growing faster than the PC era, and may even reach tens in a few months, like Instagram in less than two years, registering users to break 100 million. For server-side programs, the number of users in the tens of thousands of of thousands of times, but once the user surge, the technical difficulty is also a geometric level of growth, a ready-made example is the Chinese railway ticketing website 12306. In this case, rather than the developers themselves, it is better to start with professional things to the professional people to do, cloud services according to the use of billing is particularly suitable for this situation.

B. Baas Entrepreneurship

It is recommended that developers use Baas at the outset, not that mobile developers themselves cannot develop Baas services. In fact, for mobile developers, Baas is a good entrepreneurial choice. Encapsulate various web-based functions in the form of services provided and charged, this has emerged in the fiery microblogging app boom, where some developers are not directly developing micro-mail apps, but are providing components such as micro-mail, chicken-chick chat bots, face recognition, and other widgets that integrate into their micro-mail apps.

So, what to pay attention to Baas entrepreneurship?

The first is to refine the common demand, otherwise make a service put that no one to use, to make money can only rely on flicker;

Second, we must pay attention to technology, preferably to create technical barriers, so even if the use of less people can earn. Like flying voice recognition technology, can use the voice recognition of the app should not be much, but as long as there is application, flying can make money.

Part III: The Imaginary space of Baas

Baas Capital recognition is the most important point is that the profit model is clear, but this is not enough, like the 2012 Baas market estimates only more than 200 million dollars, this is just a little bit, even if the success of the return on investment can be how high, so there must be something else. So what other conceivable space Baas can impress savvy investors? Here's a summary of three points.

A. As a basic service for mobile internet, the prospect is not afraid of bubbles

Baidu Robin Li once said that the mobile Internet business model is not clear, now looks very hot, but more like out of control.

But the mobile Internet as an unavoidable trend, because we do not see the prospects will not go in, now do not enter, such as the birth of real business model is too late. So, we see the mobile Internet in many areas are burning money, a lot of bubbles, and so on a field bubble broke, and we flocked to the next area.

So, there really isn't a clear field of vision? Still some, that is the mobile Internet infrastructure, the only thing we can determine is that the mobile internet will grow, for the basis of this is enough. Baas is all about mobile and web apps, no matter what kind of business model the mobile Internet will form in the future, as long as it is in the form of apps, Baas is invincible.

Think of Baidu Robin Li's speech, and then think about why Baidu attaches great importance to the services of mobile developers, Baidu's mobile strategy can be glimpse.

This is the same for other Baas providers.

B. With the enterprise market, half foot into the hundreds of billions of market

Baas to connect cloud services to developer services, most Baas offer a certain amount of free money to attract developers, a practice that unknowingly divides customers: individuals or small developers are free to use, and large and medium developers and in-house developers pay for them, So Baas unwittingly became a business-to-business business.

The enterprise-level market is much larger than the 200 million dollar, which is estimated to be a Chi market. Although Baas is only a very small part of the foundation for the enterprise market, BAAS providers accumulate customer resources through the business and have a great advantage in the future when they want to transform or expand their business-to-business business.

C. Contact with large data, hands to grasp the future

Another feature of Baas is the sharing of users with developers. Through the API and SDK can collect user behavior data, a lot of developers can gather the user data, almost the entire mobile internet users, this is more than the development and promotion of the main app to collect data is much more labor-saving, the effect is better. such as cloud push service push, promotion 2 years time coverage user more than 200 million, than any top app is not inferior.

What is the value of the user data for the entire mobile internet? In the big data extremely popular now can imagine one or two. The business intelligence that relies on big data is the future trend that many people approve, now master the Big data, that is to master the key that leads to future success.

Conclusion: Baas and the future of mobile internet

Baas can be said to be the mobile internet era spawned by the service model, but its application space is not limited to mobile, but includes all terminal applications that need to interact with the network end, so it can be applied not only to PC desktop software and Web App, but also to smart home, wearable equipment and IoT. Therefore, it can be foreseen that in the future Baas will still be in the way, and more powerful, and mobile internet has a baas of the blessing, help it to get rid of the limitations of the terminal, into a wider world.