Haut Tech

When I wrote the recent article “SaaS: 10 Trends for 2010″ I used the phrase “Best Case SaaS.” I realized from feedback and some thinking afterward though that many people don’t share my vision of what it is.

I’ve noticed there are broadly two camps when it comes to developing new services for the Internet: Those entrepreneurs that feel they must do everything themselves regardless of the hurdles they face and those that want to focus on their core expertise and leverage outside services where possible.

In our first two podcasts for Haut Tech Conversations we covered service and pricing. Both subjects are critical for SaaS businesses to consider and understand in the context of their product. In the podcast we did yesterday, we went into yet another critical area – Marketing!

SaaS is not a “one-size-fits-all” business. There are many options now for platforms and services you can use and the number is increasing every day. A lot of the information available is laden with marketing hype. How do you make the right decisions?

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.

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.

Recently I read a discussion highlighted by Herb Sutter on his weblog, Sutter’s Mill. Herb is a well-known and respected leader in development and C++. In his article, he covered many of the misconceptions that seem to exist around user interfaces for Internet-based applications. The question is – are developers and product managers thinking too rigidly when they approach a SaaS application? Do “Web 2.0″ and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) have value in SaaS and On-Demand applications?

This is the first article in a four part series I’ve planned about “The Long Tail” and services (SaaS, On-Demand, etc) on the Internet.

If you have read anything at all about marketing for the web in the last few years, it is hard to imagine you might not have also heard the term, “The Long Tail.” The idea has a long history with statisticians, but the term we use dates back to 2004 when Chris Anderson wrote a magazine article in Wired describing the concepts. He also wrote a best selling book on concept, which has been recently updated. But, judging from many of the articles which use the term, I don’t blame you if you’re not sure what it is all about.

With so much uncertainty and emphasis on the economy at this time, it is no surprise that most of the “On-Demand” articles I’m seeing right now are about either the reaction of customers – SaaS adopters – or SaaS startups and vendors to the market. Jeff Kaplan wrote about it from an industry perspective this morning on Seeking Alpha.

We’ve felt it – everybody has. The “credit-crunch,” the “downturn,” or whatever you want to call it. The impact of this latest wave of economic news is being felt globally. A lot of companies, small and large, have put their plans “on hold” indefinitely.