Haut Tech

I can think of many reasons to be at SaaS University in Washington, DC beyond my session and Scio´s workshop. But I want to be clear: The sessions at SaaS University are always changing, always relevant to developing SaaS products and successful SaaS businesses. It is the only venue available with a focus on helping SaaS vendors navigate a complex business model.

Last week our team, like lots of other members of the SaaS community, attended the OpSource/SIIA SaaS Summit 2010 – titled, “All About the Cloud.” We had a busy and meeting-filled week, as I’m sure many did.

It is that time of year again – when analysts and writers of all stripes put their bets on coming trends for the new year. There’s some interesting stuff in them – check the links. But, since our predictions last year were right on the money – I expect nothing less this year. Of course, [...]

Although in reality, business services provided through the Internet are nothing new, the number and breadth of services now available is certainly worthy of note. As a Gartner report recently noted – we are most likely at the peak of the hype cycle which in “Gartner speak” leads to the “slope of enlightenment” and eventually to mainstream adoption in the enterprise.

As anyone who follows me knows – I use Twitter and TweetDeck to watch the “virtual conversations” about SaaS happening around the ‘net when I can. Today some time was freed-up by a conference call that was delayed so I fired up TweetDeck and took a look around. Imagine my surprise when I read a meme had started around a blog post touting single-tenancy for enterprise SaaS applications.

The number of negative predictions for the future of SaaS and Cloud Computing have reached a crescendo in recent weeks. There has also been a significant push back from both pundits and bloggers “in the field.” Is SaaS and cloud computing just more hype? Has it reached the level of being a “must consider” alternative?

Scio Consulting and Apprenda have announced a strategic partnership to offer enablement services for software companies looking to bring their products to the on-demand business model rapidly and efficiently by using Apprenda’s SaaSGrid , a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery platform.

In the third segment of our four-part series on The Long Tail, we’re exploring successful SaaS aggregators who have effectively mastered the concept and dominate their field.

It doesn’t take a lot to see what we’ve been writing about in the month and a half Haut Tec has been around. So, just because it is the time of year when everyone is putting together predictions for the new year and hanging them out to view, I’ll make a bold prediction for our future – more cloud computing, SaaS, Agile, RIA and the business of On-Demand services. We’ll find other subjects I’m sure, but these subjects are core of our work and in fact – the issues that lead on most lists of computing technology for the near term.

SaaS and cloud-computing in general are the hot topic in technology now – and why not? They promise to lower costs and improve productivity during one of the worst downturns in memory. But, along with the promises to buyers, has come some products led primarily by “gold rush fever” and little else. What is different this time around? Most SaaS and cloud-computing products have a ‘try-before-you-buy” strategy or at least price points that allow individual business units, SMBs, and proof of concept tests with low to no implementation costs and no capital expenditure (CAPEX). It is a critical difference in this economy.