2008年6月28日土曜日

アジア件でのMSP事業の急成長を予測、 キャリア系の企業の台頭

アジア圏でのMSP事業が今後急成長を遂げ、年間16.6%の成長を維持しながら2010年には $10.25B (約1兆円)の市場になる、との予測が最近発表されたFrost&Sullivan社の調査レポートで報告されている。  この調査レポート、日本以外のアジア諸国のデータを利用している。  キャリア系の企業の台頭が大きな要因になっている。 
 
 

Managed and Hosted Services on the Rise as Telcos Make a Play for the Outsourcing Game


 
 
With global service providers (SPs) such as BT and Verizon having significantly ramped-up investments in Asia-Pacific, and regional telcos like Tata, Reliance Communications and SingTel continuously diversifying their offerings, managed and hosted services is poised to constitute a sizeable percentage of operators' portfolio in the next few years.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.communicationservices.frost.com), Strategic Analysis of Managed and Hosted Services Market Opportunities in Asia Pacific, finds that the market - covering 13 Asia-Pacific countries ex-Japan - was worth some US$6.47 billion in 2007, and estimates this to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 16.6 percent (2007-2010) to reach a market size of US$10.25 billion by end-2010.

The most commonly contracted outsourced services are managed and hosted infrastructure/network (WAN, data centre, web hosting), managed/hosted applications (software applications), managed/hosted communications, and managed/hosted security.

The increasing maturity in such services has improved cost visibility and granularity, making managed and hosted offerings a more compelling proposition to both large enterprises and SMBs (small and medium businesses). As the market reaches a new dimension of increased price pressures and decreased service differentiation, further compounded by the relatively weaker credit outlook, the need to demonstrate cost optimization and adopt a business value-driven sales approach becomes necessary.

If you are interested in more information on the Asia-Pacific managed and hosted services market study, then send an e-mail to Sarah Lourdes at sarah.lourdes@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.

"Asia-Pac continues to grow both as a global demand and supply centre. In tandem, the emergence of Asian MNCs from India, China and South Korea continues to shape the demand for enhanced connectivity and related services," says Frost & Sullivan industry manager Jay Tan.

"Driven by this rapid development and the corresponding need for more sophisticated ICT infrastructure, yet growing pressure to do more with limited IT budget, companies are increasingly looking at outsourcing the non-core functions to support their critical business processes," he adds.

Other factors driving the adoption of managed/hosted offerings include the growing convergence of IT and regulatory compliance pressures, as well as the emergence of SaaS (Software as a Service) and utility computing.

Managed and hosted services allow companies to benefit from faster business rollout, computing overflow provisioning, efficiency in IT operations, specialized skill sets, and real-time management of mission-critical ICT infrastructure and services; some of which are either not available or too costly to maintain in-house.

To-date, MNCs and large enterprises especially those in developed markets have led in the outsourcing of specific IT services or even management of the entire IT infrastructure, while small and medium companies have been slow to utilize these services on a major scale.

Some of the more mature markets in terms of technology adoption and managed services uptake are Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and increasingly, India. Elsewhere in the region, managed and hosted services have yet to take off in a big way, although countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand offer good growth potential due to government-driven initiatives.

While the concept of outsourcing is not new to most businesses, more than 60 percent of companies in the region are still predominantly managing their IT operations in an insourcing model. This is especially true of companies in developing and more conservative markets such as China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

According to Tan, the innate fear of losing control over IT operations and compromising confidential business information has been the major factor inhibiting wider adoption of managed/hosted services. "This, together with the bad publicity of some outsourcing arrangements and the lack of strong customer references in some markets are some of the issues that managed SPs will need to address to drive uptake," he says.

As the market matures, growing competition and pricing pressures from system integrators/IT services companies and pure-play managed service providers can be expected. Hence, the need to innovate and go beyond the provision of low-cost infrastructure to deliver increased business value will be important differentiators for SPs.

Tan believes that large enterprises would increasingly embrace out-tasking and multi-sourcing more than complete outsourcing, while SMBs would prefer a hosted model.

The Strategic Analysis of Managed and Hosted Services Market Opportunities in Asia Pacific study is part of the Communication Services Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes research in the following markets: WAN services, enterprise mobility, IPTV, user generated content (UGC), social networking, online and mobile content, telecom services, and network transformation case studies. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Analyst interviews are available to the press.

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com.

SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan

2008年6月27日金曜日

Amazonのクラウドコンピューティングの性能計測サービス

Amazon社のEC2、S3、SQSなどのクラウドコンピューティングサービスのシステム性能を計測するツールを解発したHyperic社の紹介記事。  www.cloudstatus.comというサイトでそのサービスを提供。
 

A Window on the Cloud

Outsourcing compute power is wonderful — until something goes wrong. Unfortunately, when an Amazon Web Service goes down it's hard to know why, and it's even harder to know how well a particular cloud is performing in the first place. To make the cloud more transparent, open source cloud management software vendor Hyperic has launched www.CloudStatus.com, a web site that lets a user peek in on the various compute clouds to see how things are running.

CloudStatus measures service availability, latency and throughput for cloud-based infrastructure and application services. The initial release provides metrics for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, SimpleDB, Simple Queue Service and Flexible Payment Service.

Hyperic sends a software agent to make requests against various cloud services, and according to CEO Javier Soltero, it racks up quite a large bill doing do. The web site views are free, but Soltero says Hyperic also plans to launch a line of services for paying customers. It's a decent idea, but my worry is that Amazon or another cloud provider could shut the service down, either by offering their own status service or by stopping the Hyperic agent. Given the rush to provide dashboards, application-testing products and other services on top of established computing services, I'm eager to see how startups keep their footing in the clouds.

IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service)を提供する Skytap社

IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service) と称する新たなクラウドコンピューティング環境を提供するベンダーとして登場したSkytap社のCEOとのインタビュー。  On Demandでハードウェア、ネットワーク、ストレージなど、システムのコンポーネントを仮想的に提供するサービスとしてIaaSは定義しているが、短時間で各種コンポーネントのConfigurationを変更できる点が特長、との事。
 
 

Cloud Computing and Virtualization

Jonathan Erickson
Infrastructure as a service

Joining us today is Scott Roza, CEO of Skytap, a company that provides cloud-based virtualization solutions as on-demand services over the Web.

DDJ: Scott, it seems there's something new every day in the virtualization and cloud computing arena. Where is it headed?

SR: The concept of cloud computing and how virtualization enables it offers so many innovation opportunities that it is not surprising there are new announcements every day. I think what customers need to do, however, is to not take announcements at face value, but instead dig into new product offerings to understand if something is really utilizing the full potential of virtualization and cloud computing. In many cases the collaboration, efficiency, high utilization, and productivity enabled by a combination of virtualization and cloud computing is not available because many firms are using fancy rebranding to create the appearance of innovation. I have seen many traditional providers make announcements over the last six months when in reality they are repackaging without the necessary innovation. In the end, innovation will win the hearts and minds of the customer, but today they need to work hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

DDJ: What is "Infrastructure as a Service" (IaaS)?

SR: IaaS is the ability to provide computing resources -- processing power, network bandwidth, storage -- as a service. Some traditional hosting providers claim to have IaaS, but in reality they provision dedicated hardware to customers, put virtualization on top and call it IaaS. True IaaS offerings, however, are truly pay-as-you-go services that can be turned on and off at any time with almost no notice. When a provider has the ability to serve truly transient burst requirements, then they are capable of claiming they offer cloud-based, pay as you go IaaS.

DDJ A big trend in software development these days is collaboration. Does this overlap in any way with virtualization and cloud computing?

SR: Absolutely. At Skytap, we view a number of trends as creating a perfect storm for building and testing applications in the cloud. The trends include: 1) distributed development; 2) outsourced testing; 3) global test teams; 4) adoption of virtualization; 5) acceptance of SaaS delivery models; and 6) virtual machine sprawl. While these trends lend themselves to 24 hour development and rapid test feedback, they also lead to collaboration challenges, difficulty reproducing bugs in test environments, difficulty sharing virtual machine images, and slow VPN access to test labs. By using a cloud-based virtual test lab, browser-enabled role-based access creates seamless collaboration from anywhere in the world. All test and development teams share a common view of test platforms, test results, machine state at the instance of bug capture, and the ability to create simultaneous identical test stacks on demand.

DDJ: What are the challenge ahead for virtualization and cloud computing?

SR: The innovation will continue and there will be massive value created for customers over the next two to three years. However, the market may get overheated with hype and some customers will be over sold and become skeptical. The vision and potential of cloud-based virtualization is very real; but over the next 24 months there will be separation between those that truly deliver on the vision and those that just reposition the same way of doing business. As the separation occurs and leaders emerge, there will be consolidation and it will likely be lead by the biggest players such as Google, Amazon, VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft, HP, and IBM. Some of these big players will innovate -- Google, Amazon and VMWare are at the top of the list, some will quickly follow -- likely Citrix and Microsoft, and some will rely entirely on acquisition -- HP and IBM.

DDJIf readers want to find out more about these topics, is there a Web site you could point them to?

SR: Just as development and test organizations were the first to innovate with virtualization, we'll see those groups emerge as early adopters and leaders in cloud computing. For more information on how a truly on-demand, cloud-based virtual lab works readers can visit www.skytap.com.

2008年6月21日土曜日

VeriSign がデータセンタをヨーロッパに拡張

Verisign社が自社のデータセンターをヨーロッパに拡大し、上昇するDNSとSSL証明書のアクセスに対応する。  ちなみに2000年は一日に10億回のDNS Queryが現在は500億回を超えるとの事、特にヨーロッパでの成長がいちぢるしい。 

VeriSign Expands DNS Infrastructure in Europe

VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN) continues to invest in additional data center infrastructure to support the Internet domain name system (DNS). The company said today that it has deployed new data centers in Paris, France and Brussels, Belgium as part of Project Titan, its $100 million project to beef up its infrastructure.

VeriSign has continued its data center investment even as it refocuses its larger business by divesting non-core assets, including its Kontiki content delivery network. Domain names and SSL certificates will continue as the key business focus for the company, which also expanded heavily into mobile phone content (including the Crazy Frog ringtone).

In its latest move, VeriSign deployed new Regional Internet Resolutions Sites (RIRS) in Paris and Brussels. The company intends to have 100 RIRS locations around the globe by 2010 to support a 10-fold increase in the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by 2010. VeriSign says the industrial-strength upgrades will provide better redundancy and reduced latency for DNS lookups that will improve the experience for users by reducing bottlenecks and increasing speed.

"VeriSign continues to roll out our infrastructure in key regions to meet the capacity, security and reliability demands of the future," said Ken Silva, chief technology officer, VeriSign. "By deploying a site in France, the more than 32 million Internet users will now have a faster and more reliable experience connecting to the .com and .net infrastructure. With our proven internal resources and our global network of providers in fast growing markets, VeriSign will continue to work to protect the .com and .net infrastructures against service disruptions, cyber attacks, and other vulnerabilities brought by massive growth."

Since 2000, the volume of Internet traffic on VeriSign's global infrastructure has increased from an average of 1 billion domain name system queries per day to a peak of more than 50 billion DNS queries per day under normal traffic conditions. Europe is the second largest region of DNS traffic and VeriSign is continually expanding its deployment of Regional Internet Resolution Sites in Europe and currently has several sites in Europe (in addition to France and Belgium) including: Germany, England, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland and Poland.

Under Project Titan, VeriSign will increase its daily DNS query capacity from 400 billion queries a day to over 4 trillion queries a day and will increase the aggregate network bandwidth of its primary resolution centers around the world from more than 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) to greater than 200 Gbps per second.

NetSuite社によるOpenAir社の買収により、Professional Services Automation(PSA)業界のリーダに

NetSuite社がProfessional Services向けのSaaSベンダーであるOpenAir社を買収し、自社のインフラに搭載する意思を発表。 
OpenAirは俗にPSA(Professional Services Automation)と呼ばれるアプリケーションを開発し、SaaSモデルで提供していたベンダー。  Professional Services (コンサルティングやSIの総称)に必要となるプロジェクト管理、リソース管理、を体系的に行い、IT、人的リソースの効率的な活用をITシステム上で保障するアプリケーションである。 
 
 

NetSuite's purchase of OpenAir solidifies their leadership for Professional Services on-demand solutions

NetSuite's purchase of OpenAir solidifies NetSuite's position as the Software as a Service (SaaS) provider for Professional Services firms. As a NetSuite implementation partner, we ran up against OpenAir on occasion and we have a terrific respect for the product. OpenAir is a leading provider of professional services automation solution delivered as SaaS and this acquisition clearly places Netsuite as the leading provider in on-demand services automation for professional services businesses.

While it will take probably six months to a year to fully integrate all of the OpenAir solutions into the Netsuite platform, the NetSuite platform already has a significant set of features designed for professional services firms. Lima Consulting Group has historically focused on serving professional services firms and we are excited about the merger for the following reasons:

  • More resources and investment for the OpenAir product. By joining NetSuite, OpenAir gains significantly more resources to continue improving and extending the OpenAir product and continuing to execute the company's vision of revolutionizing how service companies can manage their businesses.
  • Breakthrough solutions for automating and managing services businesses. OpenAir and NetSuite are both pioneering leaders in on-demand software. By bringing together OpenAir's deep domain expertise in on-demand Services Automation software and NetSuite's expertise in integrated business suites, we will jointly create exciting, revolutionary new end-to-end business management solutions for professional services companies.
  • The integration of OpenAir products into the NetSuite platform. In the short term, the products may be sold separately and NetSuite has not made clear how professional services firms will migrate to NetSuite. We are looking for a release schedule to integrate the OpenAir product into the NetSuite platform but as is typical with mergers of this sort, even that announcement is probably going to take months. Lima Consulting Group believes that NetSuite will merge the the OpenAir technology in its 2009 major release. Announcements of this sort are usually made at the NetSuite partner conference in early October and we would expect that an announcement for a release date would be made at that time. They may surprise us and have an initial roll-out ahead of time for a very limited number of features, but don't count on it.
  • An integration of the OpenAir PSA and PPM Solutions might look like this:
    • Integrating OpenAir Professional Services Automation into the Netsuite Platform. The OpenAir Professional Services Automation (PSA) Solution helps project-based organizations increase profits by helping professionals perform their jobs more effectively and by providing managers and executives with clearer, more immediate visibility into the key operational and financial metrics. Combining NetSuite's general ledger application with OpenAir's project management, resource management, and project accounting features will improve operations, allow executives to manage by metrics and optimize profits by providing precise, quantifiable, real-time insights.
    • Integrating the OpenAir Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solution with the NetSuite platform will allow executives increased visibility to the status of projects, portfolios and resources. This insight enables managers to align projects and resources to match business objectives. Executives can make smarter, more informed decisions, improve their return on human capital and IT investments, and maximize employee productivity while minimizing project risks. This solution will be particularly useful to organizations that have a significant professional services staff such as accounting firms, ad agencies, consulting firms, law firms, event planning and destination management companies, software development firms, IT services and computer maintenance and support companies. It also might be an interesting use of franchises that offer services in support of one another or non-profits that also bill out their staff for special projects as a source of revenue.
  • Lima Consulting Group hopes that NetSuite maintains OpenAir's Defense Contract Audit
    Agency (DCAA) Compliant designation. The OpenAir solution is DCAA Compliant meaning that the software is on a list of approved Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software that government contractors can use. It is likely that they will bring the platform into DCAA compliance now and in the short term, they might create this capability as a module in the future. We don't think that will last forever though since many of the DCAA features would require very tight integration into the programming of the core NetSuite application.

  • NetSuite recently announced that they opened their platform up to multi-national corporations through their introduction of global accounting, CRM, e-commerce, and business intelligence. They have versions for multi-national businesses with multiple subsidiaries and single-country businesses with multiple subsidiaries. Combined with the OpenAir product, the eventual integration of on-demand project management solutions for virtual teams offers a very compelling value proposition for geographically separated and virtual teams.
  • Early adoption promotions. For companies who are already considering both OpenAir and Netsuite, NetSuite announced that they have special incentives to reward their early investment.

Microsoft社の仮想化、SOA、SaaS戦略についての解説

Judith Hurwitz氏は著名なソフトウェア業界のコンサルタントで、Hurwitz&AssociatesのCEO。  彼女の記事でMicrosoftの今後の仮想化、SOA、SaaSという大きなソフトウェア業界の変遷に対してどのような強みを持っているか、論説している。 
特に興味深いのは3つ目の次世代ダイナミックプラットホームに関する部分で、MicrosoftはOsloと呼ばれるプロジェクトを通して、意味的プログラミングのアーキテクチャを拘置しようとしている、という点。 
仮想化に関しては独立した製品ではなく、Hyper-Vをサーバに包含した形で出荷する戦略は非常に協力である、と述べている。 
 
 

Can Microsoft Pull Virtualization, SOA, Management, and SaaS Together?

For three years in a row I have attended Microsoft's server and tools analyst briefing. This is the vision of Microsoft that focuses on the server side of the company. A few years ago I predicted that this part of the company would get my vote in terms of growth and potential. I stand by my position. While Microsoft's desktop division is suffering through a mid-life crisis, the server side is flexing its muscles. The transition towards power on the enterprise side is complicated for Microsoft. The challenges facing Microsoft is how to make the transition from its traditional role as champion and leader of the programmer to a leader in the next generation of distributed computing infrastructure. If Microsoft can make this transition in a coherent way it could emerge in an extremely powerful position.

So, I will provide what I think are the five most opportunities that the server and tools division of Microsoft is focused on.


Opportunity One. Virtualization as a foundation
. The greatest opportunity, ironically, is also the greatest threat. If customers decide to virtualize rather than to buy individual licenses, Microsoft could suffer - especially in the desktop arena. At the same time, Microsoft clearly sees the benefits in becoming a leader in virtualization. Therefore, virtualization is becoming the focus of the next generation of computing infrastructure both on the server and the desktop. Microsoft is making many investments in virtualization including the desktop, the hypervisor, the applications, the operating system, graphics, and overall management (including Identity Management). One smart move that Microsoft has made is to invest in its hypervisor intended to come out soon as HyperV. Rather than offering HyperV as a standalone product, Microsoft is adding the hypervisor into the to the fabric of Microsoft's server platform. This is a pragmatic and forward thinking approach. If I were an independent hypervisor vendor I would hit the road right about now. Microsoft's philosophy around enterprise computing is clear: unified and virtualized.

Microsoft's management believes that within five to ten years all servers will be virtualized. To me this sounds like a logical assumption both in terms of manageability and power consumption. So, how does Microsoft gain supremacy in this market? Clearly, it understands that it has to take on the market leader: VMware. It hopes to do this in two ways: providing overall management of the management framework (including managing VMware) and though its partnership with Citrix. There was a lot of buzz for a while that Microsoft would buy Citrix. I don't think so. The relationship is advantageous to both companies so I expect that Microsoft will enjoy the revenue and Citrix will enjoy the benefits of the Microsoft market clout.

Microsoft has been on an acquisition binge in the virtualization market. While they haven't created the buzz of the Yahoo attempted acquisition, they are important pieces to support the new strategy. Investments include: Kidaro for desktop virtualization management (that sits on the virtual PC and is intended to provide application compatibility on the virtual desktop. Another investment, Calista Technologies, provides graphics virtualization that offers the full "vista experience" for the remote desktop. Last year Microsoft purchased Softricity, which offers application virtualization and OS streaming. Microsoft has said that it has sold 6.5 million Softricity seats (priced at $3.00 per copy). Now, add in the HyperV and the ID management offerings and things get very interesting.

One of the smartest things that Microsoft is doing is to position virtualization within the context of a management framework. In fact, in my view, virtualization is simply not viable without management. Microsoft positioned virtualization around this portfolio of offerings in the context of a management framework (System Center) for managing both the physical and virtual environment for customers.

Opportunity Two. Managing a combined physical and virtual world. Since Microsoft came out with SMS in the late 1990s, it has wanted to find a way to gain a leadership role in management software. It has been a complex journey and is still a work in progress. It is indeed a time of transition for Microsoft. The container for its management approach is System Center. Today with System Center, Microsoft has its sights on managing not only Windows systems but also a customer's heterogeneous environment. Within the environment Microsoft has included identity management (leveraging active director as the management framework including provisioning and certificate management). This is one area where Microsoft seems to be embracing heterogeneity in a big way. Like many of the infrastructure leaders that Microsoft competes with, Microsoft's leaders are talking about the ability to create a management framework that is "state aware" so that the overall environment is more easily self-managed. Microsoft envisions a world where through virtualization there are basically a pool of resources that are available and can be managed based on business policies and service levels. They talked a lot about automating the management of resources. Good thinking, but certainly not unique.

Microsoft is making a significant investment in management - especially in areas such as virtualization management, virtual machine management. More importantly, through its Zen-based connections (via Citrix) Microsoft will offer connectors to other system management platforms such as IBM's Tivoli and HP's OpenView. That means that Microsoft has ambitions to manage large-scale data centers. Microsoft is building its own data centers that will be the foundation for its cloud offerings.

Opportunity Three. Creating the next generation dynamic platform
. Every company I talk to lately is looking to own the next generation dynamic computing platform. This platform will be the foundation for the evolution of Service Oriented Architectures, social networks, and software as a service. But, obviously, this is complicated especially if you assume that you want to achieve ubiquitous integration between services that don't know each other. Microsoft's approach to this (they call it Oslo) is a based on a modeling language. Microsoft understands that achieving this nirvana requires a way to establish context. The world we live in is a web of relationships. Somehow in real life we humans are able to take tiny cues and construct a world view. Unfortunately, computers are not so bright. So, Microsoft is attacking this problem by developing a semantic language that will be the foundation for a model-based view of the world. Microsoft intends to leverage its network of developers to make this language based approach the focal point of a new way of creating modular services that can dynamically change based on context.

This is indeed an interesting approach. It is also a bottoms-up approach to the problem of semantic modeling. While Microsoft does have a lot of developers who will want to leverage this emerging technology I am concerned that a bottoms-up approach could be problematic. This must be combined with a tops-down approach if this approach is to be successful.

Opportunity Four. Software as a Service Plus.
I always thought that Microsoft envied AOL in the old days when it could get customers to pay per month while Microsoft sold perpetual licenses that might not be upgraded for years. Microsoft is trying to build a case that customers really want a hybrid environment so they can use an application on premise and then enable their mobile users to use this same capability as a service. Therefore, when Microsoft compares itself to companies like Salesforce.com, Netsuites, and Zoho they feel like Microsoft has a strategic advantage because they have full capabilities whether online or off line. But Microsoft is taking this further by taking services such as Exchange and offering that as a service. This will be primarily focused on the SMB market and for remote departments of large companies.

This is only the beginning from what I am seeing. Services such as Live Mesh, announced in April, is a services based web platform that helps developers with context over the web. Silverlight, also announced this spring is intended as a web 2.0 platform. Microsoft is taking these offerings plus others such as Visual Earth, SQL Server data services, cloud-based storage, and BizTalk services and offerings them as components in a service platform - both on its own and with its partners.

Opportunity Five. Microsoft revs up SOA. Microsoft has been slow to get on the SOA bandwagon. But it is starting to make some progress as it readies its registry/repository. This new offering will be built on top of SQL server and will include a UDDI version 3 service registry. For Master Data Management (MDM) - single view of the customer, Microsoft will create an offering based on SQLServer. It also views Sharepoint as a focal point for MDM. It intends to build an entity data model to support its MDM strategy.

While Microsoft has many of the building blocks it needs to create a Service Oriented Architecture strategy, the company still has a way to go. This is especially true in how the company creates a SOA framework so that customers know how to leverage its technology to move through the life cycle. Microsoft is beginning to talk a lot about business process including putting a common foundation for service interoperability by supporting key standards such as WS* and its own Windows Communications Foundation services.

The real problem is not in the component parts but the integration of those parts into a cohesive architectural foundation that customers can understand and work with. Also, Microsoft still lacks the in-depth business knowledge that customers are looking for. It relies on its integration partners to provide the industry knowledge.

The bottom line
Microsoft has made tremendous progress over the past five years in coming to terms with new models of computing that are not client or server centric but are dynamic. I perceive that the thinking is going in the right direction. Bringing process thinking with virtualization, management, and federated infrastructure and software as a service are all the right stuff. The question will be whether Microsoft can put all the pieces together that doesn't just rely on its traditional base of developers to move it forward to the next generation. Microsoft has a unique opportunity to take its traditional customer base of programmers and move them to a new level of knowledge so they can participate in their vision of Dynamic IT.

Reader Comments

Do you agree with what Judith Hurwitz, CEO, Hurwitz & Associates is saying? Perhaps you feel, or even know, different? Why not post your opinion on this issue?

Introduction: The SaaS 20 Stock Index | MSPmentor

MSPMentorが発表した代表的なSaaSベンダー20社の株価を集計した SaaS 20 Stock Indexについての記事。  今後同誌はこの数字をフォローし、SaaS業界の状況を判断する材料として利用していくとの事。  Amazon、SF.com等が登場するのはよいにしても、DellやIngram Micro等、全く別の本業があってその成績が株価に大きな影響を与える企業については、果たしてこのリストに入るべきか、ちょっと考えさせられる。 
 
 

Introduction: The SaaS 20 Stock Index

I enjoy Wall Street, blogging and the high-tech industry. With those three factors in mind, MSPmentor has launched the SaaS 20 Stock Index. It includes 20 companies focused on the software as a service (SaaS) industry.

Most of the index members — companies like Salesforce.com and NetSuite — are pure SaaS companies. But a few (notably Amazon.com, Dell, Ingram Micro, EMC, Google and Intuit) are transitioning into SaaS.

Our goal isn't to make buy, sell or hold recommendations. Rather, we want to spot key trends across the SaaS industry. Plus, we want to replace SaaS hype with real-world analysis of SaaS-focused companies.

SaaS 20 Stock Index

We're testing a range of Widgets to help display all of the index member stock prices in real time. We like the following one — a lot:


Still, the widget above has one fatal flaw. It doesn't recognize NetSuite or the company's stock symbol (N). We've called the widget author to see if they can fix that.

Next Moves

Assuming we get the widget fixed, we'll provide regular updates about how the overall index performed during the week. We'll also explore the reasons why certain index members are gaining — or losing — momentum. If MSP platform providers launch IPOs over the next few years, we'll consider adding them to the Index as well.

If you have questions about the SaaS 20 Stock Index's performance or how the index works, please contact me (joe [at] ninelivesmediainc.com).

2008年6月20日金曜日

Web SecurityがSaaS事業として成長する

Web SecurtyがSaaS事業に移行していく、という事を予測した記事。  emailのフィルターとしてMalwareやSpamを取り除くサービスが現状のWeb Securityの一般的な適用方法であるが、今後企業内のネットワークセキュリティ全体を管理するサービスが増えてくる、との事。 
 
 

Web Security and the SaaS Factor

Software as a Service Web security is gaining traction, with more vendors rolling out new applications and others expanding offerings beyond e-mail protection. Webroot, for instance, has released its first Web security app in SaaS.

The online security space has been no different than any number of other software categories in its adoption of Software as a Service. However, until recently most of the offerings in this space have been targeted to e-mail protection. That is beginning to change as more and more vendors begin to roll out Web security applications in the SaaS  model.

"Today, about 1 percent of the secure Web gateway market is SaaS," Peter Firstbrook, a Gartner (NYSE: IT)  analyst, told CRM Buyer. "But we predict it will be 25 percent in three years." There are a number of new vendors entering the space this year alone, he added.

Among those are Webroot, which recently released Webroot Web Security SaaS, as well as an enhanced version of Webroot E-Mail Security SaaS for advanced content filtering, data leakage prevention and compliance.

This is Webroot's first Web security application in SaaS, Brian Czarny, the company's vice president of solutions marketing, told CRM Buyer.  

Next Evolution

"The SaaS market for e-mail protection has been growing steadily to the point where it is mainstream," Czarny explained. Webroot believes that Web security will be the next natural evolution in SaaS adoption for a number of reasons.

"Until recently, the majority of threats to an organization have been through e-mail and the incredible increase in spam," he added. "Now though, we are seeing a change in the threat vector from e-mail to a compromised Web site that a Web user would potentially trust."

Visiting such a site could potentially deliver a nasty payload inside an enterprise , Czarny continued. Web security delivered via SaaS means there is no risk of accidentally downloading malware. In addition, the application allows enterprises to better enforce Web surfing policies, keeping employees from visiting certain Web sites.

Because the online dangers for enterprises show little sign of ever diminishing, the adoption rate of SaaS Web security is likely to grow even faster than it did for e-mail security, Dan Nadir, vice president of product strategy at ScanSafe, told CRM Buyer. Another factor favoring its growth is that companies are comfortable getting e-mail protection software in SaaS form. Web security is just the next step now.

For that reason there will be a rush of vendors to offer SaaS Web security, he predicted. "By the end of the year you will see a lot more vendors offering this than are currently on the market." All of the majority security firms are scrambling to either develop it in-house or acquire it, Nadir added.

New Model

Familiarity with the model is just one reason why more firms will be seeking out SaaS Web security, according to a report authored by Firstbrook. He also points out that with an increasingly mobile PC fleet and more Internet-meshed architectures, the gateway devices used in security software -- which usually perform URL (uniform resource locator) filtering and some sort of malware detection -- are not necessarily the best fit any more. A secure Web gateway in the Internet, or SWG, delivered as a service, is better suited to some corporate operations.

Gateway devices cannot protect PCs that are off-LAN (local area network) unless they are redirected to the corporate network  with client software, the report reads. "Concurrently, the traditional hub-and-spoke network architecture is gradually being replaced by a more meshed approach, exploiting inexpensive Internet access."

Although meshed architectures can use a Multi Protocol Label Switching network via Ethernet, frame relay or other forms of network access, there is a strong trend toward using the Internet for site-to-site connectivity, typically augmented by VPN (virtual private network) connections to create a virtual corporate backbone on public networks, according to the report.

The compositions of Web security SaaS applications differ, Firstbrook wrote. However, most provide URL filtering and antivirus and anti-spyware protection, as well as group- and user-level policy control over Web applications such as instant messaging, Web mail, peer-to-peer and streaming media

Red Hat Partners With Amazon.com On SaaS | MSPmentor

Red Hat社がAmazon社のEC2(Elastic Computing Cloud)のサービスを経由して自社のJBoss ミドルウェアを提供する事が発表された。  JBossはJavaのオープンソースソフトウェアのライブラリで、RedHatが2006年に同社を買収してからRedHatがサポートを運営し、JBoss Enterprise Middlewareとして提供している。 
AmazonのEC2に乗せる事により、クラウドコンピューティング環境でJBossを利用できるようになり、SaaSモデルの手法として注目される。
 
 

Red Hat Partners With Amazon.com On SaaS

When I added Amazon.com to our SaaS 20 Stock Index, a few readers asked me whether the online retailer is really a software as a service (SaaS) company. My answer: Absolutely. And a growing number of tech companies agree with me.

A prime example: Red Hat has inked a SaaS partnership with Amazon.com to offer JBoss middleware as a hosted service. Here's a look at the deal, and its implications for managed service providers.

At Red Hat Summit in Boston, the open source company disclosed that JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is now available within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Red Hat claims JBoss is the first cloud-based application server.

For MSPs, the Red Hat-Amazon relationship is the latest example of open source software moving into the cloud. Red Hat Enterprise Linux was already available through Amazon EC2. And fast-growing open source databases and applications like MySQL and SugarCRM, respectively, are increasingly popular as hosted services, MSPmentor has noted.

The challenge for MSPs is trying to figure out whether to build out hosted data centers, or to leverage third-party hosted services like Amazon EC2 or Google Apps, or Master MSP hosted services from such companies as Ingram Micro Seismic and Do IT Smarter.

Even traditional MSP platform providers such as Kaseya say they will now offer network operation center (NOC) and hosted services, in an attempt to assist MSPs with 24×7 customer support and other gap services.

Right now, it's sometimes easy to overlook how online companies like Amazon.com and Google are gradually moving into the SaaS worlds. But as SaaS and managed services continue to converge, MSPs will need to adjust their business strategies accordingly.

2008年6月19日木曜日

大企業でのSaaSの導入が促進

Kelton Research社の調査レポートによると、エンタプライズでのSaaSの知名度は高まっており、採用計画を持つ企業が全体の73%に達する事が報告されている。 また、既存のアプリケーションとの連携の懸念や、企業データの保全性に冠する心配が依然と多い事もわかった。

SaaS: Big Enterprises Say 'Yes'

SaaS runs counter to software strategies of large companies? That may have been the case, but that view is changing quickly. 73 percent of large companies now say that they currently use or plan to adopt SaaS over the next 18 months. Those are the results of a Kelton Research survey.

  • Executives like the idea of software by subscription. Only 21 percent said that they favored the traditional approach of paying a lump sum upfront for software that is depreciated over time, compared to the pay-as-you-go style of SaaS services.
  • Even though the model is different, executives are still planning to keep their software budgets constant after adopting SaaS. 55 percent expected to see no change in budgets.
  • Many executives feel a certain sense of liberation with SaaS, with little or no dependence from their local IT department. But 35 percent worry that IT will veto their SaaS choice should they find out about it.

Large company executives are not without concerns, and many of those are the same ones that have plagued SaaS from day one:

  • 62 percent of executives worry about keeping sensitive company data outside of the company firewall
  • 56 percent worry that SaaS systems will not easily integrate with other company-wide IT initiatives and program

Ciscoの予測による、インターネットの大きさ

Cisco社の予測によると、インターネットのデータトラフィックの成長度は年間46%に達し、従来USが中心だったものがさらにグローバルなものになる、と報告している。  2009年にUSのワイヤレス通信のデータ量が日本を越える、という予測が興味深い。 
 

Big Growth for the Internet Ahead, Cisco Says

Cisco Systems, the San Jose, Calif.-based company that makes a living selling plumbing for the Internet (amongst other things), has come out with a prediction: Traffic on the world's networks will increase (annually) 46 percent from 2007 to 2012, nearly doubling every two years. As a result, there will be an annual bandwidth demand of approximately 522 exabytes2, or more than half a zettabyte.

If these kinds of predictions remind you of the wild-and-wooly claims made by folks like MCI and WorldCom in the early days of Internet 1.0, relax –- these numbers aren't that bad. And I would normally douse them with the cold water of skepticism, except that my dear friend, Andrew Odlyzko, who was the first one to spot the con in WorldCon's traffic bunkum and has been tracking the growth of Internet traffic, says he expects, overall, an annual growth rate of some 50 percent to 60 percent.

That's why I'm happy to take Cisco's study and its newly announced Visual Networking Index (VNI) seriously. Cisco's data is actually important to note, especially in the light of the recent tiered/metered broadband moves by U.S. carriers and their demagogy about bandwidth consumption.

Anyway, some interesting findings from Cisco include:

  • Global IP traffic will reach 44 exabytes per month in 2012, compared to less than seven per month in 2007. In 2002, global IP traffic was five exabytes, which means that the volume of IP traffic in 2012 will be 100 times as large.
  • Monthly global IP traffic in December 2012 will be 11 exabytes higher than in December 2011, a single-year increase that will exceed the amount by which traffic has increased in the eight years since 2000.
  • Mobile data traffic will roughly double each year from 2008 through 2012. U.S. will surpass Japan in mobile traffic in 2009. (I guess thanks to the iPhone.)
  • In 2012, Internet video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried by the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000. Representative of this trend, Internet video has jumped to 22 percent of the global consumer Internet traffic in 2007 from 12 percent in 2006. Video-on-demand, IPTV, peer-to-peer (P2P) video, and Internet video are forecast to account for nearly 90 percent of all consumer IP traffic in 2012.

My own observation with regards to all these developments is the continuous contribution of new economies -– China, Brazil, Russia, India, Eastern Europe and the new Nordic nations. A growing number of subscribers and their usage of broadband and mobile broadband is slowly pushing up the demand for bandwidth, which has lead to a huge spurt in the traffic on regional and international backbones. New fiber construction to support the growth in traffic also bolsters Cisco's claims.

China has already passed the U.S. as the world's largest broadband and mobile market. India is getting there. VeriSign, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that's a major player in business domain names, notes that India now has about 41 million Internet users, making it the eight-largest Internet country. Cisco notes that Internet traffic is growing fastest in Latin America, followed by Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, and says that's likely to be the case through 2012. It kind of makes sense — after years and years of U.S. domination, Internet traffic is beginning to act in a more global fashion.

2008年6月18日水曜日

Microsoftの仮想化ソリューションの不評

Microsoft社の推進しているアプリケーション仮想化ソリューション(SoftGrid社買収によるもの)とデスクトップ仮想化ソリューション(Kidaro社買収によるもの)はいづれも、MDOP(Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack)というパッケージの一部として提供されているが、このMDOPはSoftware Assuranceという保守パッケージの3年契約を購入する事が条件付けられており、市場での不評を買っている。 
 

Is Microsoft MDOP slowing down virtualization adoption?

As most virtualization.info readers know, Microsoft offers Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid) and soon Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (formerly Kidaro Managed Workspaces) only through a special bundle called Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP).

The offering is peculiar because the MDOP is only available for those customers which agree to buy the Microsoft Software Assurance: a 3-years deal which allows to receive the newest version of a certain product without paying the software as brand new.

Obviously the Software Assurance comes as a premium service which some customers are not happy to pay.

Over the last two years virtualization.info collected a number of complains about the way MDOP is offered, and a superficial search on the Internet will return enough clarifications that a SMB company with no more than 50 desktops can't consider the Software Assurance as the right option to go.

A further confirmation comes from CRN which publishes the testimonials of a couple of system integrators:

"The majority of my customers are not at all happy with Microsoft regarding the Software Assurance requirement on MDOP and Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop licensing (VECD)," said Chris Ward, senior solutions architect at GreenPages Technology Solutions, Kittery, Me.

...

"I understand that Microsoft is trying to add value to Software Assurance. But it's a shame that really useful products are going that way, because SA isn't right for all customers, particularly SMBs," Sobel said.

"Microsoft is trailing VMware [in virtualization], so for them to take their useful innovations and make them not completely available to the whole potential marketplace to me is an unfortunate choice," Sobel added.

How many Application Virtualization license could be sold without the Software Assurance lock-in?

Presidio 社が Unified Communications サービスを開始

Presedio Networks Solutions社がUnified Communications、VOIP、Web Conferencing、Firewall、VPN管理を統合した、MSP事業を提供すると発表。  最近こういった通信関係のアプリケーションを統合したサービスが多く登場しており、CaaS(Communication As A Service)とも呼ばれるようになっている。
 

Presidio Launches Managed Unified Communications Services

Instead of betting the house on managed services, Presidio Network Solutions is setting up a business unit to specialize on network management services.

The strategy, first reported by NetworkWorld, goes far beyond the traditional remote administration services that some small VARs now offer. Instead, the Presidio Managed Networks unit will focus on unified communications, VOIP, web conferencing, firewall and VPN management.

Presidio isn't alone. Some of Cisco Systems' top channel partners are melding unified communications with managed services.

Bob Cagnazzi, CEO of BlueWater Communications Group — Cisco's fastest-growing North American partner — told me in April that he was exploring a NOC (network operation center) project to support unified communications and managed services. (You can hear about Cagnazzi's strategy in this podcast.)

Although the unified communications market is growing fast, it also introduces some challenges to MSPs. In particular, recent anecdotal reports suggest that small business owners are not familiar with unified communications, notes InformationWeek (my very first tech media employer, by the way).

2008年6月17日火曜日

SaaSの分類

SaaSの定義は一般的にマルチテナント環境におけるシステムをさす、と理解されているが、これはSalesforce.comのシステム環境を代表としたアーキテクチャから来ている、と言われている。  一方では、OracleやIntacct社のように少し異なるアーキテクチャでSaaSを提供しているケースもあり、本記事はその違いを整理しようとしている。 
 
 


Many degrees of multi-tenancy

For SaaS purists, multi-tenancy — the architectural model that allows them to serve multiple customers from a single shared instance of the application — is an article of faith, the one thing that marks them as a tribe apart from traditional software vendors. Suggesting that they're anything other than fully multi-tenant, then, is tantamount to questioning a man's virility or impugning an American's patriotism. It's not the done thing.

Oracle director of platform products Milan ThanawalaPerhaps, therefore, Milan Thanawala (pictured), director of platform products at Oracle, might have chosen his words a little more carefully in a panel session last week at the SIIA OnDemand Europe conference in Amsterdam [disclosure: I was a keynote speaker at the conference and participate in agenda planning for the SIIA's SaaS events. I spoke — for a fee — at an Oracle event in January, and Salesforce.com, mentioned below, is also a client].

In the midst of a discussion of security, Thanawala made a passing comment that multi-tenancy isn't a prerequisite for SaaS. Panel chair Bill McNee, CEO of analyst group Saugatuck Technology, immediately challenged this assertion with his own observation that multi-tenancy was fundamantal to SaaS. Now under pressure to defend his position, the Oracle spokesman responded that SaaS ISVs in Oracle's partner network employ a range of different architectures. He went on to cite Intacct in support of his case, saying that the on-demand financials vendor runs its customers on separate pods, each with its own separate Oracle database.

It was a fateful example to choose. Incarnating every conference speaker's worst nightmare, up stepped conference organizer David Thomas, executive director of the SIIA's software division, taking a microphone to flatly contradict Thanawala: "I'm the former CEO of Intacct and I can tell you for a fact that's not the case. Intacct's architecture is completely multi-tenant," he said.

Having participated in a webinar only the previous month with Intacct's CTO Aaron Harris, Thanawala was disconcerted by Thomas' intervention but held his ground — as did Thomas. In the coffee break afterwards, the two of them could be seen locked in discussion as they sought to settle their differences.

The simple explanation for Thanawala's discomfort is that there are many degrees of multi-tenancy, whereas he was using the term solely in its purest sense, as implemented by Salesforce.com. Intacct's model — espoused by many leading SaaS vendors including NetSuite — is equally valid (although not in Salesforce.com's eyes). There are lesser-degree variations below these purist implementations. Here's a rundown of the main differences between the Salesforce.com model, the Intacct model and Oracle's own preferred 'pod' approach:

Salesforce.com: First-degree multi-tenancy. In this model, all customers are served from a single infrastructure in which every component is shared, all the way down to the tables in the database. This is often called 'shared schema' multi-tenancy because the database structure is defined by the schema and if everyone's data is stored inside that structure then by definition, everyone is sharing the same schema. In an ideal world, a first-degree multi-tenant architecture runs on a single logical system or instance. But in the real world, when you get to the size of Salesforce.com, not even Oracle can offer you a database that's capable of scaling that big. So Salesforce.com replicates its architecture across (currently) five instances in North America, plus separate instances in Europe and Asia.

Intacct: Second-degree multi-tenancy. Like many SaaS pureplays, Intacct uses replication much more broadly than Salesforce.com to distribute its shared-schema instances across large numbers of server clusters. This means it can use commodity hardware rather than big-iron systems, and has less exposure to a single system failure, while still remaining true to the shared-schema model. Within each Intacct cluster, a single Oracle database instance serves a shared schema to a minimum of 10 customers. The main difference from the Salesforce.com model is one of scale: Salesforce.com operates just eight instances (for more than 43,000 customers) whereas Intacct operates a hundred or so (for around 2,500 clients). But there's another critical difference that purists see as a major dilution of the multi-tenant principle: Intacct allows customers to choose when they upgrade between releases (within a three-month time window), whereas Salesforce.com upgrades everyone simultaneously at a time of its own choosing.

Oracle and others: Lesser-degree multi-tenancy. There are a lot of terms floating around for these lower levels of multi-tenancy, including isolated tenancy, mega-tenancy or hybrid tenancy. Many purists will be scandalized that I even continue to use the term multi-tenancy for this type of implementation. There are many variations, but the primary characteristic is the abandonment of the shared-schema principle. There's still some element of shared-server infrastructure, but each server cluster (Oracle calls them 'pods') is configured somewhat differently from the next. Although this makes it easier to fine-tune each pod to different customer needs using conventional customization processes, it adds immense complexity when co-ordinating the roll-out of new software releases — as SAP recently discovered with its Business ByDesign project.

It's not only the upgrade process that benefits from the consolidation achievable at the massive scale delivered by Salesforce.com's top-degree multi-tenancy model. It makes it far less complex to monitor application performance and thus to hone aspects such as security, availability, response times and other service quality characteristics. It's also much easier to collect aggregate data about customer behavior and to establish benchmarks for best practice. Finally, integration is simpler to shared back-end infrastructure, such as identity management systems, APIs and interfaces to third-party services. The more clusters a vendor has, and the more variation between clusters, then the more middleware and management software it will have to buy.

Perhaps that's why Oracle likes to promote the multiple pod model — especially at lesser degrees of shared tenancy, where the management and oversight challenges expand exponentially — Oracle not only gets to sell lots of database licenses, but also lots of different technology infrastructure product licenses as well.

Purists argue that, even if in principle you're prepared to pay the cost of managing multiple implementations, there comes a point at which there are so many variables it's simply not technically feasible to deliver the same degree of oversight they're achieving with large-scale shared-schema instances. In the long run that means their performance, security and reliability will just pull so far in front of their competitors that their model will triumph.

A much larger number of SaaS vendors prefer the slightly more hybrid model pursued by Intacct, either to take advantage of commodity hardware or to allow a degree of customer flexibility when implementing upgrades (which is more of an issue for transactional applications like financials than it is for data management applications such as salesforce automation).

Both camps, however, agree on the principle of shared schema. Their differences of opinion are around implementation of shared-schema multi-tenancy. Any lesser form of multi-tenancy — such as, for example, having shared application servers but housing each customer's data in separately customizable database instances — is a quite different architecture. Be warned: in the SaaS world, pretending or assuming otherwise may cause offense.


Software as Services / Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:08:48 GMT

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2008年6月13日金曜日

クラウドコンピューティングの3つのレベルの定義

SOA World誌がクラウドコンピューティングの3つのレベルの定義を行っている。 

市場を分析する上で参考となる情報。

 

The Three Levels of Cloud Computing - Applications, Platforms, Infrastructure

How do the different offerings compare, from Amazon Web Services to Google App Engine and Force.com?!

Thorsten von Eicken's RightScale Blog

It looks like pretty soon all computing will be called cloud computing, just because the cloud is "in." Fortunately most computer savvy folks actually have a pretty good idea of what the term "cloud computing" means: outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand, somewhere in the Internet, etc. What is still confusing to many is how the different offerings compare from Amazon Web Services to Google App Engine and Force.com. I recently heard a characterization of three different levels of clouds which really helps put the various offerings into perspective.

Here's my rephrasing:

Applications in the cloud: this is what almost everyone has already used in the form of gmail, yahoo mail, wordpress.com (hosting this blog), the rest of google apps, the various search engines, wikipedia, encyclopedia britannica, etc. Some company hosts an application in the internet that many users sign-up for and use without any concern about where, how, by whom the compute cycles and storage bits are provided. The service being sold (or offered in ad-sponsored form) is a complete end-user application. To me all this is SaaS, Software as a Service, looking to join the 'cloud' craze.

Platforms in the cloud: this is the newest entry where an application platform is offered to developers in the cloud. Developers write their application to a more or less open specification and then upload their code into the cloud where the app is run magically somewhere, typically being able to scale up automagically as usage for the app grows. Examples are Mosso, Google App Engine, and Force.com. The service being sold is the machinery that funnels requests to an application and makes the application tick.

Infrastructure in the cloud: this is the most general offering that Amazon has pioneered and where RightScale offers its management platform. Developers and system administrators obtain general compute, storage, queueing, and other resources and run their applications with the fewest limitations. This is the most powerful type of cloud in that virtually any application and any configuration that is fit for the internet can be mapped to this type of service. Of course it also requires more work on the part of the buyer, which is where RightScale comes in to help with set-up and automation.

Looking at these different types of clouds it's pretty clear that they are geared toward different purposes and that they all have a reason for being. The platforms in the cloud are a very interesting offering in that they promise to take some of the mundane pain away from dealing with the raw infrastructure. But it's not at all clear to me that the vendors can live up to the promise of managing everything seamlessly and that the functional constraints won't cause applications to have to move up to the infrastructure clouds as they mature and gain complexity. It would not be good if toy apps started on the platform clouds and then moved to the infrastructure clouds as they gain adoption. One possible outcome is a hybrid model where the canonical application core remains in the platform cloud and the odd pieces of functionality and/or the parts that need to scale the most drastically move off to infrastructure clouds.

2008年6月11日水曜日

SaaS Stocks Down 12 Percent In 2008 | MSPmentor

MSPMentor誌が発表しているSaaS 20 Stock IndexというSaaSベンダ20社の平均株価指数の動向によると、今年の頭から指数が12%下がっている、との事。  特に影響を与えているのは、
Salary.com (-62%)
NetSuite  (-46%)
Taleo  (-35%)
Omniture (-33%)
どのベンダーも共通した問題があるわけではなく、継続的な分析が必要だが、今後の不景気でSaaSの市場での採用は期待されているのは事実。 
 

SaaS Stocks Down 12% So Far In 2008

The next time somebody tells you software as a service (SaaS) is a home-run opportunity, tell them to take a close look at MSPmentor's SaaS 20 Stock Index, which tracks many of the world's "leading" SaaS companies.

Since December 31, the index has fallen more than 12 percent, and at least four SaaS companies have seen their shares slide more than 30 percent this year. Here's a bit more about the SaaS 20 Stock Index, and some of the trends it's tracking.

Yes, SaaS is the wave of the future. We believe SaaS will increasingly meld with open source and managed services to create big opportunities for investors, customers and IT service providers.

But for every winner (like Salesforce.com shares, up more than 13 percent since Dec. 31), there are numerous losers and hard-luck stories. Salary.com (down nearly 62 percent), NetSuite (-46 percent), Taleo (-35%) and Omniture (-33%) have all declined sharply since the New Year, according to MSPmentor's SaaS 20 Stock Index.

There's no single explanation for the declines. Perhaps SaaS stocks were overvalued heading into 2008. And maybe we'll see a rally as enterprise and midsize firms cut internal IT spending amid the economic slowdown, and more fully embrace SaaS.

Either way, I'm a long-term believer in the SaaS market. But MSPmentor's SaaS 20 Stock Index will help us to gauge the actual performance of SaaS companies.

We'll use the index to cut through the hype you're hearing across the SaaS landscape. And we'll measure the progress of traditional tech companies (like Dell and Intuit) that are pushing into SaaS.

We also have our eyes on some long-term goals. As MSP platform providers launch their own initial public offerings (IPOs), we'll consider adding them to the SaaS 20 Stock Index.

 

2008年6月10日火曜日

Nirvanix社のオンラインストレージ事業

Nirvanix社がAmazon.comのS3(Simple Storage Sercice)に対抗してオンラインストレージ事業を展開。  Amazon社より200%データ転送速度が速い、と主張。
 

Nirvanix Takes Aim At Amazon.com Simple Storage Service (S3)

Nirvanix, an online storage provider, is making some interesting head-to-head claims against Amazon.com's Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Specifically, Nirvanix claims that its Storage Delivery Network offers downloads that are roughly 200 percent faster than S3. The data is based on testing done by 3Tera Inc.


Is Nirvanix really that much faster than Amazon S3? Perhaps it doesn't matter. By throwing some research out into the market and specifically mentioning Amazon.com S3, Nirvanix has search-engine optimized itself to compete more effectively against Amazon.com.

Anyone using Google Alerts for Amazon.com S3 will instantly discover Nirvanix's service now. Let's hope Nirvanix's technology is as good as the company's online marketing.

2008年6月6日金曜日

Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft、Intuit社のSaaS戦略の整理

各社のSaaSに対する取り組み、戦略などを非常に簡潔に整理し、多数のリンクも整理した記事。  オフィスコンピュータで一時代を築いたDECがCompaqに買収されるまでにいたった経緯を例に新しい潮流に乗り遅れればどんなに大きい企業でも倒産の危機に陥るだろう、というのが作者のSaaSの位置づけ。 
 

How Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Intuit are Responding to the SaaS Revolution

In my previous blog entry, I discussed the possibility of a software giant failing to adapt to the SaaS revolution. I used the history of DEC as an example of how a highly successful company could miss a major shift in the market and capsize. This blog entry is a reference guide to what each of the major software vendors are doing in the SaaS space. I won't be sensational and predict the demise of any of these vendors. I think it's far too early to tell how the future will pan out.

I can say subjectively that I am impressed with Larry Ellison's pioneering efforts in the space. I can also say that SAP is currently the media whipping boy in the space, with delays in their Business ByDesign program costing them credibility. But this revolution is far from done, so let's not waste time trying to speculate the distant future.

Note: I am now an employee of Oracle, via the BEA acquisition

 

Oracle

Strategy

Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, has be talking about on demand software for a long time (10 years I believe), so it is clearly on his radar. In fact, he was an investor in both Salesforce and Netsuite, showing his belief in the business. Charles Phillips, Oracle President, has also spoken to the topic.

Larry and Charles Phillips have articulated a strategy on how Oracle can deliver SaaS and retain its focus on its core market (large enterprise). Larry does not intend to make a major push into the lower end of the SMB market.

Current SaaS Initiatives:

Oracle supports the following SaaS initiatives:

Weaknesses

Critics have primarily focused on the lack of end-to-end multitenancy in the On Demand business. The argument is that Oracle will not be able to provide a cost efficient solution unless the entire stack is multi-tenant.

Further reading:

 

Microsoft

Strategy

At an architectural level, Microsoft is promoting an S+S model, instead of a pure SaaS model. S+S stands for Software+Services. The idea with this is that Software as a Service is most useful when pared with local software (like Office). Microsoft obviously has a major incentive to make sure desktop software is not left behind in the SaaS world, so this makes for good strategy. Whether consumers will buy into it is another matter. See the weaknesses section below for more on this topic.

Current SaaS Initiatives

The following is a selection of  the SaaS offerings from MSFT:

  • SaaS On-Ramp Program - aids ISVs in building out SaaS solutions
  • Microsoft Online Services - its businesss applications ondemand offering
    • Hosted versions of Exchange, Sharepoint, and LiveMeeting
    • Dynamics CRM Live - hosted version of the Dynamics CRM offering
  • Windows Live - a family of hosted offerings for the small business/consumer
    • Live Mesh - touted as a SaaS solution, it currently is just a file synchronization service
    • Messenger (IM), Windows Live ID, Virtual Earth, Search, Spaces (blogs), and Gadgets
  • Architect Center - provides architectural guidance for ISVs
    • Lead by Gianpaolo Carraro and Fred Chong
    • Have produced a SaaS reference application, LitwareHR
    • While some of what they write is MSFT centric, most of the articles are generally applicable
    • As an architect myself, I admire the work that they do

There are more services listed here, but not all are really SaaS.

Weaknesses

Critics contend that Microsoft will struggle to succeed in the SaaS market while preserving its existing franchises. It already stumbled with its business model when a European partner began offering Office as a service:

Its Office franchise is already being eroded by service based offerings (Google Apps, Zoho, Adobe, etc). Somehow it has to prevent Office revenue from being decimated by pure SaaS players.

 

IBM

Strategy

Searching for interviews on SaaS with IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano or VP of Software Steve Mills does not bring up much of interest. This is a bit alarming, remembering the lessons from my previous DEC  post. Of the 5 major software giants covered here, IBM appears to have the least amount of executive mindshare for SaaS.

I am not the only one who sees this: Larry Barrett wrote an entire article analyzing IBM's apparent sluggishness when it comes to SaaS. While I don't see a high level business strategy, IBM has embarked on some SaaS initiatives, covered in the next section.

Current SaaS Initiatives:

IBM has these intiatives:

Weaknesses

As Larry Barrett noted, IBM doesn't appear to be aggressively pursuing the SaaS model. Sure, it has some initiatives going, but for the size of IBM those initiatives seem undersized.

Also, Jeff Nolan has pointed out that IBM lacks the business apps necessary to execute on an effective SaaS strategy.

Further reading:

 

SAP

Strategy

SAP CEO Henning Kagermann helped launch the major SAP SaaS initiative: Business ByDesign which is a hosted version of several of SAP's traditional heavy weight business applications. The intent was to target SMB, but due to problems in execution that strategy may be changing. It also plans to be a SaaS hybrid, with some on-premise software in the mix.

The bright spot for SAP and SaaS comes from its acquisition of Business Objects (BOBJ). BOBJ was already offering Crystal Reports at the time of the acquisition, and appears to be a healthy business.

Current SaaS Initiatives

SAP has three major initiatives:

Weaknesses

By far the biggest perceived weakness with SAP is its failure to execute on its much publicized SaaS release (BBD). Critics point to the major delays (possibly 24 months) as a sign that SAP's applications are a poor fit for the SaaS model. Worse, SAP validated the concept to its customers but failed to deliver, providing key advantage to competitors like NetSuite.

  • Loraine Lawson: SAP's SaaS Is Dead. Long Live SAP's SaaS.
  • Dennis Howlett: SAP Business By Design likely to be delayed
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    Further reading:

     

    Intuit

    Strategy

    CEO Brad Smith isn't the most vocal about SaaS, but his company is doing the talking for him. Intuit is clearly pushing the SaaS model, with major product offerings already available. The strategy appears to be simple: offer online equivalents of their product suite:

    Current SaaS Initiatives

    Intuit offers the following products as SaaS offerings:

    Weaknesses

    I haven't seen any weaknesses other than stiff competition. The space Intuit plays in will become crowded, with Netsuite and Intacct already delivering SaaS, and Sage likely to become a contender as well.