Executive Blog on SaaS and Application On-Demand


Performance, Security and the Virtual Private Cloud

Often the two biggest concerns about using Cloud resources today is the lack of latency SLA’s and the difficulty of locking down sensitive data in cloud environments.  These issues of performance and security are often cited as the most common reasons users either don’t adopt the cloud, or if they do use cloud resources, the […]

Private Cloud is not truly Cloud

Much has been made lately of the fact that the cloud is not enterprise-ready.  Security, performance, SLAs, support, standards and management tools are all cited as reasons the cloud isn’t ready for enterprise adoption.
Many vendors are proposing Private Clouds as a solution. Private Clouds are clouds that run inside enterprise data […]

Silo Busting 4 - Where is the Channel?

Just in time for the third part of my Silo Busting Trilogy (don’t be confused by the 4, the first post was just an overview) Sarah Lacy published her fantastic article On Demand Computing: A Brutal Slog.  (Sara, thanks for the set-up.  Let me know how I can return the favor.)
For those without the patience […]

Silo Busting 3 - Integrate with the Enterprise

A couple of posts ago, I spoke to the busting of the SaaS Silo with Web Services and the impact that was having on the SaaS industry.  The last post spoke specifically about using Web Services to add functionality to your app.  While adding cool new functionality to the app is big for the product […]

Silo Busting 2 - Beyond Google Maps

Probably the simplest thing SaaS apps can do to improve their business is to use web services to improve the functionality of their application. By integrating third party applications in “Corporate Mash-Ups” SaaS companies can have the best of both worlds; a robust feature set and a complete focus on their core product.
Companies like […]

SaaS Grows Up (and busts out of the Silo)

It’s time to grow up….and learn to play nice with others.
SaaS adoption in the enterprise has definitely increased. But with that organizations are increasingly asking SaaS applications to start working with both other SaaS applications and the company’s legacy applications as well. According to recent studies by both Saugatuck and Forrester suggest that […]

Cloud Hogwash

When Mike Mankowski sent me this blog post today, I figured “Yeah! My running buddy David Greenfield from Altera is writing a post about me. I didn’t even know he blogged.
Alas, it was a case of mistaken identity but the post was real. This David Greenfield disagrees with my hogwash, but that’s O.K., […]

Hard to stay mad at Google

As many who know me, know that I have not been a big fan of Google. I love the desktop search (or I did until I got a Mac with Spotlight) but am not a big fan of their corporate culture. Just because they got search right (emphasis on the past tense, but that’s a later […]

The Children are the Future — Pt. 2

Just a quick update on the last post. I’ve seen a variety of articles on the decline of Educational Software, but I like this one the best. I like it because the time frame represents the delta between my oldest child, who we bought software for, and my youngest, who we have never […]

When The Children Grow Up

Reading M.R. Rangaswami’s recent post Where are Software’s Children, I am struck by the continued belief that enterprises will continue to use installed applications through the next generation of software. That is simply not going to happen.
Mr. Rangaswami’s observation of the age of the ruling class of software companies is aging and that most […]