Posts Tagged ‘PaaS’

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Research Summary: Market Overview – The Market For SAP Optimization Options

Published on May 15, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Forward And Commentary

This market overview provides a starting point to SAP customers seeking optimization solutions.  The document delivers actionable advice and insights into a proven collection of software solutions.  As part of the full series, best practices documents will follow with in- depth case studies and a critical product evaluation of this growing market of SAP optimization solutions. 

A. Introduction

With the average Global 2000 ERP deployment nearing 11.5 years in service, ERP customers face a significant challenge with updating their existing investments. Installed pre-Y2K, users have attempted to work around the best practices of the ‘90s while seeking innovation and application agility. Subsequently, SAP users face three main challenges:

  1. Higher cost of ownership that reduces overall ROI.
  2. An aging and brittle infrastructure that hampers innovation.
  3. Increasing complexity that hampers greater adoption.

B. Research Findings

As SAP customers choose their go- forward apps strategy, interviews from 100′s of clients show that four paths emerge (see Figure 1):
  1. Stay with status quo;
  2. Move to shiny new SAP.;
  3. Stabilize SAP and augment; and
  4. Modernize SAP and surround with best-of-breed.
Figure 1. The Four Paths Of SAP Optimization

 

Consequently, an $80.1 billion third-party SAP ecosystem has emerged to address nine key areas (details on each vendor in the official report):

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Monday’s Musings: Thoughts On How Indian Infotech Companies Can Lead Instead Of Follow

Published on February 7, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Disruptive Technologies Remain Top Of Mind Among Business Technology Leaders

It’s always a privilege and a pleasure to reach out to clients and prospects around the world.  For those tracking my location, I’ve been in London, San Francisco, and Mumbai over the past 9 days.  The conversations have ranged from social business and enterprise 2.0 tools while speaking at the Tibco tibbr launch; to CRM and social CRM strategies while keynoting at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 San Francisco launch event.  Despite the range of topics, a few themes keep emerging among buyers:

  • Can you help me figure out what’s hype and what’s real among the disruptive technologies?
  • What technologies will support my new business models?
  • How do I pay for all this “stuff” if I want to go forward?

The good news – pent up demand signals new interest to spend among business technology leaders.  In fact, I’ve spoken with at least a dozen companies investing more into <gasp>… ERP!  The bad news – technology is moving so fast that many organizations can’t keep up with what’s new.  Most organizations can barely keep the lights on.   On my way to Mumbai, the conversations among buyers shared similar themes with one exception – the rise of India in global tech.

Conversations On The Way To Nasscom Focus On India And Its Role In The Global Tech Economy

Now, as many of you know, the trip to India takes almost 24 hours from San Francisco.  By the tenth hour, you and your fellow passengers have watched every movie you can see, poorly slept, eaten 2 meals, and more than happy to strike an intellectual conversation.  For me, trips to India, Brazil, China, and the UAE always provide good data points on disruptive and emerging technology adoption in fast growing economies.   This trip proved no differently.  Surrounded by techies, from the IT and bio tech world, we dove into heated discussions ranging from India’s place in the global tech economy; to inspiring innovation in Indian companies; to China vs India; to the future of outsourcing.

All in all, these conversations reflected the top of mind items in the tech community and mirrored many of the Nasscom agenda items.   Among the NRI’s, a lot of attention discussed the rebalancing of power from the United States to India and China in the tech community.  Among us outsiders, we expressed a respect and recognition for how much India has accomplished.  In fact, most infotech firms have made a shift from provider to catalyst (see Figure 1).  A few market leaders such as Infosys, HCL, TCS, and Wipro remained within striking distance of achieving advisor status in some industries.  Western firms such as Accenture, IBM, and Deloitte seek to move from advisor to innovator status.

Figure 1. Software Insider Stages Of Service Firm Maturity

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Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011

Published on January 4, 2011 by R "Ray" Wang

Organizations Seek Measurable Results In Disruptive Tech, Next Gen Business, And Legacy Optimization Projects For 2011

Credits: Hugh MacLeod

Enterprise leaders seek pragmatic, creative, and disruptive solutions that achieve both profitability and market differentiation.  Cutting through the hype and buzz of the latest consumer tech innovations and disruptive technologies, Constellation Research expects business value to reemerge as the common operating principle that resonates among leading marketing, technology, operations, human resource, and finance executives.  As a result, Constellation expects organizations to face three main challenges: (see Figure 1.):

  • Navigating disruptive technologies. Innovative leaders must quickly assess which disruptive technologies show promise for their organizations.  The link back to business strategy will drive what to adopt, when to adopt, why to adopt, and how to adopt.  Expect leading organizations to reinvest in research budgets and internal processes that inform, disseminate, and prepare their organizations for an increasing pace in technology adoption.
  • Designing next generation business models. Disruptive technologies on their own will not provide the market leading advantages required for success. Leaders must identify where these technologies can create differentiation through new business models, grow new profit pools via new experiences, and deliver market efficiencies that save money and time.  Organizations will also have to learn how to fail fast, and move on to the next set of emerging ideas.
  • Funding innovation through legacy optimization. Leaders can expect budgets to remain from flat to incremental growth in 2011. As a result, much of the disruptive technology and next generation business models must be funded through optimizing existing investments. Leaders not only must reduce the cost of existing investments, but also, leverage existing infrastructure to achieve the greatest amount of business value.

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News Analysis: Salesforce.com Buys Heroku For $212M – Shows Commitment To Next Gen Apps

Published on December 8, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

Acquisition of Heroku In Line With Platform Future of Salesforce.com

At Marc Benioff’s keynote, the CEO reiterated his commitment to 6 clouds: Sales, Service, Data (Jigsaw), Collaboration (Chatter), Cloud Platform (Force.com), and Database (database.com).  As Salesforce.com continues to diversify its portfolio into adjacent markets, the platform as a service (PaaS) component remains a key area of emphasis.  Without a strong developer ecosystem, the Cloud pioneer would relegate itself to a one-trick pony.  Consequently, the recent VMforce announcement targeted the Java community.  Now Salesforce.com seeks to win the hearts and minds of the Ruby ecosystem.  This platform as a service (PaaS) acquisition is significant because Heroku:

  • Delivers the full Ruby platform. As a multi-tenant platform and hosting environment, Heroku keeps it simple and hides the complexity of servers, infrastructure, slices and clusters from users.  Application code dynamically scales using a technology called the Dyno Grid.  Using compiled slugs, a self-contained and read only version of code, Heroku addresses scalability and high availability for developers in a contained and self-managed system..

    Point of View (POV):     Next generation apps developers seek the simplicity of not having to manage servers and installs.  PaaS options accelerate time to market for new solution.  Cloud2 will require ultra fast elasticity and Heroku has proven this model out.
  • Serves the hot mobile and social apps market. With over 105,000 mobile and social cloud applications built on Heroku, Salesforce.com intends to provide the leading platform for next gen apps development.   Heroku delivers the backbone behind many of the new consumer tech innovations.

    POV:     Future apps development and developers align more with the consumer tech world. Salesforce.com’s acquisition thrusts the cloud vendor into a new world of mobile and social apps.  If successful, Salesforce.com will attract the next generation of developers.
  • Aligns with the database.com acquisition. Heroku’s pricing model is based on dynos, a single web process running code and responding to http requests.  The more dynos used the more concurrency achieved.  As users consume code, they increase database usage through a portfolio of options (see Figure 1.).

    POV:     database.com can fit neatly into the PaaS stack for Heroku users.  The pricing model could prove complimentary for database.com and other Salesforce.com users.

Figure 1. Heroku Offers A Wide Range Of Database Options

Source: Heroku

The Bottom Line: Salesforce.com Intent On Paving Its Future
Already in the Cloud, Salesforce.com sees its future aligned with mobile and social.  This move provides the significant infrastructure to win the hearts and minds of the next gen apps developer.  Unlike many of its enterprise software competitors, Salesforce.com realizes that the platform is key to its future and success.  If successful, this move will also help Salesforce.com extend its reach into the consumer tech side of applications.  While there are many benefits of PaaS, customers moving to Heroku should seek provisions in The Customer Bill of Rights: SaaS.

Your POV.

Do you think Salesforce.com can transform into a full PaaS?  Have the failures in APEX taught Salesforce.com the lessons learned for success in this new platform?  Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org and we’ll keep your anonymity.

Related Resources And Links
20101207 PR Newswire – Salesforce.com Signs Definitive Agreement To Buy Heroku

20100429 SoftwareInsider – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Salesforce.com and VMware Up The Ante In The Cloud Wars With VMforce”

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through the Software Insider brand or Constellation Research, Inc.  To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact r@softwareinsider.org.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us.  A full disclosure listing will be provided soon on the Constellation Research site.

Copyright © 2010 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Event Report: Oracle Open World 2010 – Beyond The Day 1 Hype

Published on September 21, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

(Photo: Copyright © 2010 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.)

Oracle Day 1 Focused On Showcasing Both Software And Hardware Prowess

The Day 1 keynote kick-off from Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, touched on the wide spectrum of Oracle’s broad software and hardware portfolio.  Despite an over-emphasis on hardware and appliances, Oracle also pre-announced the launch of Fusion Applications.  A closer analysis of the announcements show:

  • Fusion Apps unveiled and announced for GA in Q1 2011. Joking about the length of time its taken since the halfway to fusion event on January 19, 2006, Larry Ellison finally announced the availability of Fusion Apps.  The seven products include Financial Management, Procurement and Sourcing, Human Capital Management (HCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC), and Project and Portfolio Management (PPM).  Oracle’s engineering team built 20,000 objects, 10,000 business processes, and 100 modules from scratch (see Figure 1).  Fusion Applications meet 8 of the 10 criteria for next generation social enterprise applications. Oracle intends to target the best of breed SaaS products such as Concur, Salesforce.com, Success Factors, Taleo, and Workday.  At this point, no pricing information has been provided but Oracle has promised like to like upgrade parity for existing customers.

    Point of View (POV):     Fusion Apps highlight a new level of design.  The apps infuse Web 2.0 paradigms with enterprise class sensibilities.  Role based screens present relevant tasks, alerts, and analytics.  Adoption will depend on the customer’s existing landscape.  Oracle customers generally fall into 3 categories: Die Hard Red Stack Believers, Best of Breed Customers By Accident, and Net New Greenfield.  Expect Net New Greenfields to consider the full Fusion App suites as they compare existing Apps Unlimited products and SAP.  Best of Breed Customers By Accident will most likely be drawn to the 100 modules to be delivered on demand and on premises.  Die Hard Red Stackers most likely have upgraded to the latest Fusion Middleware and will consider product replacements and module adoption.  Fusion Apps remains fairly horizontal and those customers with rich and stable vertical capabilities will most likely hold off for future releases.  Customers should keep an eye on the middleware pricing associated with Fusion Apps.

Figure 1.  Scenes From Oracle Open World And Screen Shots Of Fusion Apps

(Photo: Copyright © 2010 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.)

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Research Report: How SaaS Adoption Trends Show New Shifts In Technology Purchasing Power

Published on June 21, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

SaaS Adoption Surveys Often Overlook Audience Composition

Over the past year, analyst firms, tech media, and even mainstream business media have happily showcased positive news about SaaS adoption.  The common theme remains clear – SaaS adoption moves beyond the tipping point in 2010.  Cloud adoption will reach a tipping point in the next 12 months.  All this bodes well for customers and SaaS providers as organizations now embrace SaaS as an acceptable deployment option in their apps strategy.  Unfortunately, recent SaaS/Cloud adoption surveys continue to provide confusing and sometimes contradictory data about adoption.  Close examination of these surveys reveal that not all adoption surveys are equally created.  The unspoken question, who’s answering the surveys?

SaaS Decision Making Firmly In The Hands Of The Business Buyer

Anecdotally, business users drive SaaS decisions, while IT leaders remain skeptical.  To validate this hypothesis, Software Insider conducted a quick survey of 100 Global 2000 organizations.  Starting with the most senior IT leaders, the question was posed, “Are you using SaaS in your organization for major business processes?” (see Figure 1).  Of the 46 organizations who responded, the procurement leaders were then asked the same question (see Figure 2).  After comparing survey results, the following conclusions emerged:

  • IT leaders aware but hesitant on SaaS adoption. A little under a quarter of IT leaders (23.91% or 11/46) responded that they were using SaaS applications.  Key applications deployed include CRM, strategic HCM, expense management and project based solutions (PBS).  Delving deeper into these verbal and in-person interviews highlighted a desire to learn more about SaaS.  As one CIO at a major food and beverage concern stated, “The business heads keep showing up with these SaaS apps and then want us to integrate them.  We need to get a handle on all this!”  Key concerns included, “I don’t know if we can integrate all this in the future”, responded the CIO of a large Fortune 500 retailer and “I think we need better governance and security”, remarked the Director of Enterprise Apps for a Top 25 banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) entity.
  • Procurement leaders reveal surprising adoption by business leaders en masse for SaaS solutions. Conversations with the procurement managers highlight how business users have taken matters into their own hands.  Every one of the surveyed organizations (100% or 46/46) had an existing SaaS contract, contradicting the IT leaders who did not respond that they ran SaaS solutions.  In fact – these contracts ranged from five seat deals to 2000 seats at one organization.  As the procurement head at a large professional services firm indicated, “The teams will buy whatever they need now.  IT has no clue!”.  “Business has to go around IT because they are too busy keeping the lights on”, retorted a procurement manager at a global 10 pharma.  A procurement manager for a large multi-national manufacturer stated, “Our main issue with SaaS is finding enough solutions that will support our needs.”
  • Business leaders take charge but fail to communicate with IT leaders.  The key finding – lack of coordination among business, IT, and procurement.   Amazingly, the 35 IT leaders who stated they did not run SaaS apps for major business processes still may not know about the CRM, HCM, Project Based Solutions, and Finances deployments in their organization.  When some of them were shown the results, these leaders expressed amazement and surprise.  Organizations should be alarmed but not surprised by this lack of coordination between business and IT.

Figure 1.  IT Leader Responses Show Muted Adoption

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News Analysis: Salesforce.com and VMware Up The Ante In The Cloud Wars With VMforce

Published on April 29, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

VMWare and Salesforce.com Battle For The Hearts And Minds Of Cloud-Oriented Java Developers

On April 27th, 2010, Salesforce.com, [NYSE: CRM] and VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) formed VMforce, a strategic alliance to create a deployment environment for Java based apps in the cloud.  The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering builds on Java, Spring, VMware vSphere, and Force.com.  Key themes in this announcement:

  • Growing the developer ecosystem. VMware and Salesforce.com realize that the key to growth will be their appeal to developers.  The VMforce offering courts 6 million enterprise Java developers and over 2 million using SpringSource’s Spring framework with an opportunity to build Cloud 2 applications.  VMware brings application management and orchestration tools via VMware vSphere.  Salesforce.com opens up its applications, Force.com database, Chatter collaboration, search, workflow, analytics and mobile platforms.

    Point of View (POV):     By betting on Java and the Spring framework for this Cloud2 PaaS, both vendors gain immediate access to one of the largest developer communities in the world.  Salesforce.com developers no longer have to use the highly flexible, but very proprietary APEX code base to create Cloud2 apps.   Java developers can now reach the large base of Salesforce.com customers and use the Salesforce.com apps and Force.com.
  • Creating cloud efficiencies for Java development. VMforce brings global infrastructure, virtualization platform, orchestration and management technology, relational cloud database, development platform and collaboration services, application run time, development framework, and tooling to the cloud.  Organizations can build code in Java and integrate with apps in Salesforce.com without having to retrain existing resources.  Environments can scale as needed and take advantage of the massive economies of scale in the cloud.

    POV:     As with all PaaS offerings, cost and time savings include not dealing with hardware procurement, pesky systems management software, configuration and tuning, and multiple dev, test, and production environment set up.  Developers can focus on business value not infrastructure.  What will they do with their free time not scaling up databases and app servers?

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