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SaaS: The Cat is Out of the Bag

Posted on October 12, 2006 ·

I’m sitting at the Office 2.0 conference watching a barrage of 5-minute product demos. FreshBooks‘s CEO just dropped a bomb at the last 20 seconds in his presentation: being software as as service, they can aggregate customers’ data, categorize it by industry, size ..etc, and once they do that, why not turn it into a product?

Customers can receive generalized metrics as well as benchmark themselves against their peers.

Stop here. Think about it. This is big. It’s not about FreshBooks. It’s *the* hidden business model enabled by SaaS. It is so logical, we all had to know it would be coming – but carefully avoids talking about it. No wonder… SaaS adoption is growing but still at an early stage, and security, trust concerns are huge. The last thing software vendors want is to feed those concerns, i.e get their customers worried about the competition accessing their data.

The benefits are obvious: all previous benchmarking efforts were hampered by the quality of source data, which, with all systems behind firewalls was at least questionable. SaaS providers will have access to the most authentic data ever, aggregation if which leads to the most reliable industry metrics and benchmarking. Yet it raises a number of serious questions: How far can they go? What are the security / confidentiality / privacy implications? Are they reselling data that the customer owns in the first place? If the customer owned the core data, who owns the aggregate?

The business of metrics, benchmarking is potentially huge, but it can’t take off until the industry, along with customers, can answer these questions – and more.

Update (10/16): I’ve just checked who else talks about this Unheralded SaaS benefit, and voila! Two posts from fellow Enterprise Irregulars, ex-Gartner Vinnie Mirchandani and Yankee Group’s Jason Costello.

Update (10/30): Read Dennis on Valuing Data and on Freshbooks.

Filed Under: SaaS, SMB / SME · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Your Neighborhood Bank Becomes Your Trusted SaaS Provider

Posted on September 8, 2006 ·

If you’re like me, you haven’t talked to a bank teller for years, in fact haven’t set foot inside a branch for a long time. Why should you? You do all your banking online. (?) But you probably wouldn’t think of your bank as *The* Software as a Service provider to run your entire small business…

That’s exactly what Fokus bank pulled off in Norway, in cooperation with 24SevenOffice and Bluegarden. The new, innovative bundle is probably the first of its kind in the World: single sign-on Web solution for your banking and all other business software needs. (hat tip: Espen Antonsen)

Let me reiterate: it’s not just online banking, but a full hosted business system. Given all the trouble I had just getting Quicken / Microsoft Money to work with several major US banks, I have a hard time imagining them come forward with such revolutionary offering. Key benefits to:

  • Customers
    • Trust, security. SaaS is not as widely accepted in Europe as in the US, and certainly the key issue is that flexible new products come from lesser known smaller providers, which SMB’s see as a major risk. Having the bank manage your data is a reassuring solution.
  • The Bank
    • Customer retention, in fact competitive advantage to attract businesses away from other banks. In a world when it’s easy to switch banks for the sake of higher interest, Fokus will have a virtual lock on its customers: that of convenience.
  • 24SevenOffice
    • Access to Fokus banks 200,000 customers; prospectively using it as a vehicle to penetrate the Danish Market since Fokus is owned by Danske Bank. Marketing/PR value of launching a “World First”

This is not the first innovative deal coming from 24SevenOffice: previously they teamed up with Telenor, a leading Scandinavian telco to create a 3G “Mobile Office“.

I’ve been following 24SevenOffice for quite a while (and have received occasional updates from Staale Risa, COO), largely due to my obsession with “Enterprise” functionality to small businesses. I can count on a single hand (two fingers?) the number of All-in-One SaaS providers with comparable breadth of functionality: CRM + ERP + Office .

My only wish is that the company entered the US market sooner. Recently they launched an International version, accessible to US customers, but frankly, that’s about the one thing coming from 24SevenOffice that I am unimpressed with. It removes the key value proposition of being a full-rounded, integrated solution ( a’la NetSuite but more) and positions the system as a lower-cost CRM competing head-on with SalesForce.com. Well, I have news for my European friends: this version does not compete with Salesforce, but with the dozens of other challengers. Personally, I think it’s a marketing blunder.

That said I know the company is working on porting their full system (think accounting, HR ..etc) to US requirements and a full blown US launch is in the works …. stay tuned.

Update (9/8): To access the full 24SevenOffice site, trick the system by selecting a European country, e.g. the UK. You still have to do some digging, a lot of logistic functions are hidden under Financials.
There’s also a neat demo here.


Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Marketing / PR, SaaS, SMB / SME, Software, Startups, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Atlassian Taking On the World

Posted on August 15, 2006 ·

(Update: apologies for the dead video links, Youtube is apparently down, here’s their message: ”

We’re currently putting out some new features, sweeping out the cobwebs and zapping a few gremlins.“)

I’ve recently had a chance to meet Mike and Jonathan in Atlassian’s San Francisco offices, and frankly was blown away by their enthusiasm, the company’s growth, but most importantly by a demo of Confluence, the market-leading enterprise wiki.

Market-leading? Never heard of them, you may say …. Certainly they enjoy a lot less brand recognition than let’s say JotSpot or Socialtext, both of which enjoyed abundant PR from the moment they launched, largely thanks to Joe and Ross‘s star-power. (Hey Joe, you were my early inspiration to get started with blogging, time for YOU to post again!). Lacking the “instant brand”, Atlassian spent their money on product development instead of PR, and it has obviously paid off. Watch this video for background:

Less PR or not, they are not exactly unknown to customers, as Confluence’s corporate market share is more than the others put together. From what I understand Confluence’s sweet spot is larger organizations, where administration, sophisticated permissioning schemes (groups, pages, activities…etc.) scalability, performance are increasingly important. (Yes, permissioning kinda goes against the social, “we’re-all-contributors” nature of wikis, but it’s a fundamental corporate requirement). The largest implementations currently run up to 30k users, but Atlassian is working on a clustered release that will be scalable to hundreds of thousands of users. Pricing also reflects the focus on large corporations: while at the entry-level Confluence is typically more expensive, at the high end (large user-base) it costs less then either Socialtext or Jot.

Despite it’s impressive feature-set and favorable price Confluence is not an available choice for some customers; namely those who are determined to use SaaS solutions. Confluence is strictly on-premise, download and install-behind-the-firewall software. Being a big believer in SaaS of course I would like to see them offer a hosted version, but today’s market reality is that only 10% of all software sold is SaaS. Atlassian’s own customer experience is that a lot of larger organizations do want their wiki behind the firewall, and competitors must have been receiving similar feedback, as both Socialtext and JotSpot are adding an installable product to their offering. However, Confluence may be missing out on the bottom-up, grassroots adoption by business users that both Jot and Socialtext are enjoying – at least until it becomes available on-demand.

And while the Founders did not have the star-power of their competitors 4 years ago, they are getting closer, having just received the 2006 Ernst & Young Eastern Region Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.. Watch the video of the Awards Ceremony here:

Congrat’s, Mike and Scott!

 

Filed Under: Business, Collaboration, Enterprise Software, SaaS, Social Networking, Software, Startups, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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SAP’s New On-Demand SRM Offering through Acquisition of Frictionless Commerce

Posted on May 17, 2006 ·

Quick news from the press conference at SAPPHIRE 2006: Shai Agassi has just announced the all-cash acquistion of Frictionless Commerce, a leading Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) software provider. As a result of the acquistion, On-Demand SRM will be the second SaaS offering by SAP, following the recent introduction of On-Demand CRM. Second, but certainly not last, as Leo Apotheker clarified during the Press Conference, over time all SAP’s offering will be made available in the “hybrid” model.

Update: See initial analysis by AMR Research.

Related posts:

Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, SaaS, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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Using AdWords to “Badmouth” the Competition

Posted on April 11, 2006 ·

Espen talks about how Google’s AdWords is used against 24SevenOffice. Here’s one of the ads displayed for the keyword “24SevenOffice” :

24SevenOffice – Great system for doctors, quick service, low costs!

The only problem is, 24SevenOffice does not do any of it. It’s a CRM+ERP+Communication+ .. + SaaS provider.

Whoever put up the ad, will likely pay very little, as few who specifically search for the company will click through. They manage, however, to clobber their competitor’s image, confuse and drive away potential customers, or disappoint the few who actually might be looking for a doctors’s solution, click through and feel “bait and switched”.

(somewhat) related post:


Filed Under: Business, ERP / CRM, Marketing / PR · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Software 2006: Questioning the McKinsey Study

Posted on April 7, 2006 ·

(Updated)
McKinsey and Company in collaboration with the Sand Hill Group, organizer of the Software 2006 Conference released their Industry Study (pdf) that I have to take issue with. (yes, I know, who am I to disagree with McKinsey?)

“Business Model Discontinuity: Software as a Service (SaaS) and Open Source. Two major business models are vying for an growing share of software spend: Software as a Service and Open Source. …SaaS has already gained traction in number of application areas – such as payroll, human capital management, CRM, conferencing, procurement, logistics, information services, and e-commerce) – and should make gains across a much broader cross-section of applications over the next 3 years. Out of 34 application areas we have examined, only nine are unlikely to see some SaaS adoption over through 2008”

Apparently McKinsey tells us that Financial Applications are the back-office function most unlikely to see SaaS adoption for years to come. Hm … I know the trendy app now is CRM, but there were widely-used web-based packages long before CRM. Intuit, NetSuite (originally NetLedger), Intacct, 24SevenOffice, WinWeb ..just to name a few.

Perhaps these companies can jump in here, and tell us what they think of McKinsey’s prediction that SaaS will not take off for financial apps?

Update (4/7): Dennis Howlett has a really good point bringing up Document Management, the other “unlikely” area per McKinsey. As to confidentiality concerns: the numbers in the financial apps are the result of real business activity that may very well have been in other hosted systems, e.g. CRM, Procurement..etc. Document Management? Oh, well, our external interaction is often on hosted platforms (email), sales contracts are largely in hosted systems (CRM)… I could go on.
Interestingly enough businesses lost more confidential data stored “safely” inside the firewall due to disgruntled ex-employees than due to “exposure” to SaaS providers.

But the point I made about Accounting systems, that this isn’t subject to predictions, it’s already happening, or has happened largely: accounting was available On-Demand before CRM was “born”.

Update (5/31): New McKinsey paper bullish about SaaS model. (hat tip: Nick Carr. Free registration required to read).

Update (8/17): Dennis points us at Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Software as a Service.

“On-Demand Financial Management Applications and On-Demand Sales Force Automation are said to be at the peak.”

Interesting. McKinsey says it’s not coming for years, Gartner says it’s already at the peak. Go figure …

Related posts:


Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, SaaS, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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SaaS vs. Open Source for SMB’s? A No-Brainer.

Posted on March 5, 2006 ·

(Update)
I have to take issue with Paul Gillin’s approach as he discusses whether SMB’s are better off with SaaS or Open Source Applications. If we equate Open Source to downloadable, on-premise installed software, I have no doubt, and have stated it before that the only good answer is SaaS. But, hold on, a few minutes later we’ll see these two options may not be mutually exclusive for long.

Paul analyzes several criteria:

  • cost
  • speed of deployment
  • customization
  • reliability
  • data ownership
  • vendor viability

These are all issues well-discussed on the web, and although Paul does not explicitly say, my reading is that he also leans towards the SaaS conclusion. The problem is that this criteria-by-criteria approach works well with a typical (mid-size) company where some level of IT expertise is present. Small Business America is very different from the web-savy geeky software startups; the majority are more traditional businesses with no CIO, IT department, in fact often without any IT support whatsoever. While the two main obstacles SMB’s face with any on-premise implementation are cost and (lack of) IT expertise, you can’t just translate the latter into cost – i.e. the cost of hiring full-time IT support. The opportunity cost of Management venturing into IT hiring and project decisions instead of focusing on their primary business makes this an impractical approach, leaving us with only one choice: SaaS.

Another issue not discussed in the article is integration. Open Source or SaaS, getting several packages work together requires IT and business process expertise, which typically means hiring expensive consultants. Therefore, I would go one step further: not only SaaS is the best choice for most SMB’s but they should seek to minimize the number of providers, i.e. the best choice is to use integrated All-In-One solutions.

The current undisputed leader in this field is NetSuite, but as they follow Salesforce.com’s footsteps and move upstream chasing midsize businesses, they leave an opening for up-and-coming challenger 24SevenOffice, which focuses solely on SMB’s, and covers a wider range of business functionality than the incumbent.

This is the situation today. Now, let’s revisit the original question: SaaS or Open Source? A tiny startup named SQLFusion is working on making that question obsolete. The dilemma with Open Source: a lot of good applications are available, but they are written by geeks for geeks… you really have to be quite knowledgeable to download and implement them. Example: at one of the startups I am advising I use SugarCRM over the internet. Starting to use it was a no-brainer, but when I looked at the prerequisites and the process of installing it myself, my head started spinning. No way, this is not for me! Open Source Fusion, which I hear is within days of opening for a limited beta will bridge the gap between availability and usability of Open Source Programs, by offering such apps to be used over the Internet. In true On-Demand fashion, maintenance, upgrades all happen in the background, one can start using the programs without implementing them. So it will no longer be SaaS or Open Source, but SaaS and Open Source.

The first incarnation of Open Source Fusion will provide access to individual applications, still leaving the integration dilemma for SMB’s, but the technology under the hood enables the company to later offer an integration layer between the key applications it serves up.

So the future is Open Source Software as a Service. Hm, here’s an ugly acronym: OSSaaS (?)

Update (3/6). Releated posts:

Update (5/23): Stefan over at The Small Business Blog discusses the issue; his company, WinWeb is expected to offer Open Source apps as a service soon.


Filed Under: Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Open Source, SaaS, SMB / SME, Software, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Salesforceless.com

Posted on December 21, 2005 ·

(updated)
Little did Jeff Clavier or Brad Feld know just how timely their posts on “Shared Nothing Architecture” would become in days now that the granddaddy of all on-demand software, Salesforce.com was partially knocked out for almost a day.

The Typepad outage that prompted Brad and Jeff write their piece was just storm in a teacup; this is the real thing, the Perfect Storm. Real business customers could not conduct their business for a day. That something like this would happen was inevitable, but didnt’ we all expect it in the form of a major Internet outage? After all, on-demand vendors are likely to do everything in their power to avoid such outages – or do they? In the case of Salesforce.com, the answer is probably a yes: Earlier this year, Salesforce.com announced it would spend US$50 million to set up redundant East Coast and West Coast data centers with rapid data replication and failover capabilities, an initiative it dubbed “MirrorForce.” (source: IDG).
That’s exactly the kind of commitment Brad and Jeff are asking for, and not all (smaller) providers can afford it. Not that they all should… their core competency being in developing innvative software, not running data centers, which should be outsourced to the “pros” like Vinnie Mirchandani pointed it out numerous times.

Back to our “Perfect Storm”, it will have an effect on the entire on-demand industry, since Salesforce.com is such an icon for this segment. SAP, Oracle etc… will no doubt refer to this “vulnerability” in their sales pitches. Rival NetSuite will not brag about it on their homepage, but their salesforce will likely be trained to point out to prospects why this could never happen to them …

What exactly happened is still unknown – which in itself is quite a customer communications fiasco on Salesforce.com’s part. I bet it will soon be fixed though: the company will come forward with an explanation of what happened, what they do to avoid it in the future, and what they do to accomodate their customers who suffered from the outage. My bet is on Marc Benioff – he will somehow manage to turn this fiasco into a PR victory.

Talk about communication, I am amazed the blogosphere is not abuzz with this story – in fact it’s hardly being mentioned, in sharp contrast to the recent Typepad outage. Isn’t this the type of imbalance Chris Selland and Brad Feld just complained about? Or is everyone out Christmas shopping? 🙂 Ohh… stores close soon .. gotta run now:-)

P.S. Salesforceless.com is a valid site – I just bought it. (not that I know what to do with it… )

Happy Holidays!

Update (12/21): Others on the subject:

Update (12/23): Unlike Salesforce(less).com, TechCrunch is not mission critical software, just an extremely popular blog, yet when they have an outage, Mike finds it important enough to go public right-away. Way to go!

Update (12/31): Reuters talks about Web Services outages, citing Typepad, del.icio.us … etc, not even mentioning Salesforce(less).com. Funny… Nice-to-have services appear to be more important than mission critical business applications?


Filed Under: Business, Customer Service, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Marketing / PR, SaaS, Software, Startups, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Open Source – Socialism? “Döm inte hunden efter håren”

Posted on November 16, 2005 ·

(updated)
No, I don’t speak Swedish … but it’s cute:-) More on it later… The recent controversy around Shai Agassi’s remarks about Open Source prompted Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL to come forward with his own prospective.

But first things first, what was the controversy? “SAP Slams Open Source” – quoted CIO Today. SAP’s very own Jeff Nolan found himself in a rather invonvenient situation (at least initially) of having to distance himself from Shai’s perceived message: “I wasn’t at the Churchill Club event so I can’t comment on the context of Shai’s comments, but I do not agree with them if they are as represented in this article.”

In his speech at the Churchill Club Shai supposedly strongly came out against Open Source and equated it to “IP Socialism”. Hm…having grown up in a communist country I certainly don’t like the way it sounds… although if we look at what he actually said in the second half of this very statement, it actually makes sense: “IP socialism is worst thing that can happen to any IP-based society…If there is no way to defend IP, then there is no reason to invest in IP. “ Remember, this comes from the guy that invests over $1B in R&D. Jeff later listened to the full podcast of the session and realized the quotes were taken out of context. See more details and a link to Shai’s own blog at ZDNet.

My two cents: the traditional Enterprise Software model (mega $ licence fees, complex and costly implementations, expensive maintainence, questionable ROI) is not sustainable. Enterprise Software companies and their whole ecosystem (Implementation partners, 3–rd party plug-ins, etc) are experiencing Pricing and Innovation pressure not just from Open Source, but the increasingly adopted On-Demand model. One can’t really expect a SAP / Oracle ..etc Executive to be truly, entirely happy about the changes being forced upon them. That said, they can try to be obstructionists, or realize the world is changing with or without them – might as well go for the ride, take the challenge / opportunity to invent new business models and survive/thrive in the New World.

Marten makes the point that SAP is the latter group: “ SAP is the first and most significant ERP vendor to publicly, officially and in actuality embrace open source. SAP was the first enterprise ERP vendor to ship on Linux. SAP has an investment in Zend, the PHP company, and a strategic partnership with MySQL. By its actions, SAP is one of the great supporters of open source.”
On legacy software companies in general: “ At the end of the day, deeds count more than words. If you support open source, you will be supported by the millions in the open source community who are working hard to shape the future of the software industry. “

I fully agree with Marten’s views … but there’s one area where I’d take a step further: “ Perhaps open source can commoditize the infrastructure components and make applications more affordable.” Not just infrastructure, IMHO. Applications are next.
SugarCRM is a pioneer in commoditizing the application (CRM) market … yet they got outwitted themselves by their own ecosystem. The trend is unstoppable, even outside Open Source. A closed-source, on-demand company, 24SevenOffice offers its innnovative, fully integrated Web-based SMB suite for about a third of NetSuite’s prices, in fact they undercut Open-Source SugarCRM themselves, when comparing the On-demand version of their product.

As for the incoming tidal wave of Open Source Applications: CRM is just the beginning, the low-hanging fruit… there are literally hundreds of business-grade Open Source applications, ranging from accounting, manufacturing, purchasing, all the way to complete ERP-like solutions, or industry-specific point solutions, like patient management for health care, restaurant management .. etc. One of the reasons why they are not used widely is that they are “trapped in the land of the Nerds” (out-of-context quote by Joe Kraus of JotSpot at the recent SDForum Collaboration SIG event, but I just could not resist using it). Really. Most Open Source apps are difficult to implement, one has to be a real techie to navigate through the maze.

This is where companies like SQLFusion can help small businesses: by providing an easy way to create their web-presence, then offering a pipeline of pre-packaged Open Source applications that can be installed, used, kept up-to-date by a single click of the mouse they bring open source apps within reach of millions who otherwise would not have the expertise to use them. (disclaimer: I am affiliated with SQLFusion)

Update (11/16) Other points of view:

IP Socialism

SAP talks smack about open source

Bigamous contrition and open source faux pas

And now SAP looooves open source?

Big Brother

Update 2 (11/19) I’ve received inquiries about the title – it is explained in Marten’s article I linked to. Btw, it looks like Scandinavian style is in fashion.

Update 3 (11/29) Water into Wine: Monetizing Open Source via On Demand – great article by Rightnow CEO Greg Gianforte, obviously describing his company, but also a perfect fit to SQLFusion’s business model described in the last paragraph about. I love it, thanks, Greg! 🙂

Update 4 (5/10) The Stalwart woke up, blew the dust off of a half-a-year-old speech by Shai Agassi, and starts the Open Source as IP Socialism debate again. (hat tip: Jeff Nolan) Nothing new, why today? Anyway, perfect timing, anyone interested in the subject should come to the Who Pays For Software? New and Old Business Models event tomorrow, where Open Source will definitely be in the focus of a star-panel.

Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Open Source, SaaS, Software, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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Pre-AJAX AJAX Applications

Posted on September 6, 2005 ·

OK, so this title does not make a lot of sense … I’ll explain:
There’s a lot of hype around AJAX ( Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which, in laymen’s terms is a set of technologies that allow web applications to have the look’n feel (and speed!) of desktop applications.

Traditional “web behavior” has been one of the main reasons for user reluctance against hosted Enterprise Applications, and innovative companies have come up with AJAX-style solutions for quite a while. Norway-based 24SevenOffice, a provider of hosted, modular All-In-One applications (ERP, CRM, email, calendar ..etc) has had an AJAX-like UI for a year and a half or so. Of course the term AJAX did not exist, so they had to explain at length the benefits of a faster, friendlier, easier-to-use Web Application.

It took a brand like Google, and the gliding-sliding oh-so-beautiful and fast Google Maps for AJAX to become a “household” name and one of the hot IT trends this year. Now longer do we need the long explanation, AJAX is chic du jour, all new web apps have it, and the major hosted Enterprise App’s also go the AJAX way: see NetSuite’s announcement. They claim to be first major business application with broad support of AJAX, but as stated above, they are a little late to the party… Late or not, it’s nice to see mainstream adoption and friendlier Web-apps finally.

For more technical info, as well as a good compilation of reference material, check out Rasmus’ 30 second tutorial. (via Jeff Nolan).

Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, SaaS, SMB / SME, Software, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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