The Future, Now

11th January, 2010 by Nipa Vaidya, nipa.vaidya@timesgroup.com

SLOWLY BUT STEADILY, CLOUD COMPUTING IS FINALLY MAKING ITS PRESENCE FELT IN INDIA. AN INTERESTING CAREER OPTION FOR IT ASPIRANTS, CLOUD COMPUTING IS CURRENTLY THE TALK OF THE TOWN.

NIPA VAIDYA PRESENTS DETAILS

Let’s begin with the basics. What is cloud computing? Wikipedia says it is ‘an Internet – (“cloud-”) based development and use of computer technology’. Simplifying this definition for us, Anurag Gupta Senior Architect, Yahoo, says, “Cloud computing is a mechanism that enables management of computing and IT infrastructure to be consolidated in one or more data centers to
reduce the overall cost of operating computing facilities.” Breaking down this information to the bare basics, Vikas Arora, Group Director –Enterprise Services, Microsoft India, says, “Cloud computing is nothing but a computing technology that provides organisational abilities to access software and hardware resources from a virtual space.”

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Redefine Convenience (Why SaaS?)

13 Mar, 09 by Suraj Sinha (SS), Chief Customer & Product Strategy Officer, a2zapps.com

“Need to buy and maintain a local generator for electricity or, connect to existing power supply line” – which one is more convenient?

Of course your next question will be how reliable and stable your power supply line is!! Assuming the power supply line is reliable and stable; everyone must admit that they will go for the second option as they had been doing it for a while in most of the developed and developing countries.

As an analogy, just replace ‘electricity’ by a useful business software application and ‘power supply line’ by internet connection (or, say information/data communication line). Assume that, reliability and stability come from a super-secure and reliable data or, information center maintained by a group of technical experts. Won’t you like to enjoy the convenience of using this business application over a secure internet connection irrespective of wherever you are or, whenever you want? Or, you want to take the pain of local purchase of hardware, the software, hire people to maintain all these IT (Information Technology) –related activities!!

“SaaS-Software-as-a-Service” enables us to live that convenient life using the former option. It brings simplicity and transparency in the usage model of a business application. The information platform is so integrated that you can have a spreadsheet data, email/phone discussion thread and different visual presentations all within single integrated database.

If you have a choice of ‘redefining convenience’ of the usage model of a business application as either an IT-savvy or, non-IT-savvy business owner; won’t you want to forget traditional software usage model and embrace the next-generation software as a service model?

And, a2zapps.com is the FIRST ASIAN SaaS platform in true sense to provide this convenience to you over the internet.

Empower IT growth using Software-as-a-Service model in the global recession

The IT industry in India is going through massive slowdown and turmoil. Slowdown of PC sales is a primary indicator reflecting the state of this industry. To utilize PC’s to their fullest usage, average users and business owners need diverse sets of software applications. While one group emphasizes the open source software e.g. freeware business model, it cannot help to create a collaborative and sustainable atmosphere for long-term growth. People fall for this model at early stage due to its zero initial investment.

Based on the past, fast-paced PC sales took place due to huge growth of IT industry fueled by large enterprises. But currently global downturn and recession force these companies to reduce manpower. This reduces PC sales dramatically. On the other hand, a huge group of small and medium industry owners still use pen and paper method
and they are in a state of oblivion related to PC usage and its impact on business growth. Many of them may use PC’s inefficiently due to lack of their expertise and willingness to learn business applications those are not easy to use.

Going forward we need to empower these huge small and medium industry (SME) with robust as well as simple-to-use business applications on the internet. This will directly improve IT growth and huge awareness on efficient business transactions and monitoring amongst diverse set of SME owners.

a2z Applications.com’s unique and one-of-a-kind business proposition: ‘Business Application through Software-as-a-Service model’ will help all SME owners to create as well as choose applications based on their needs in a cost-effective way. Simplicity and ease-of-use of this model will help SME owners to concentrate on their businesses rather than wasting time in managing, maintaining and upgrading on-premise or standalone application software packages. This will not only help tremendous growth in PC market in India but also it will help in growing
business targets for SME’s using efficient use of PCs.

-Surajit, Chief Customer & Product Strategy Officer

IDC- Economy Will Force IT to Transform

Economy Will Force IT to Transform

In 2009, expect to see big deals and sprawling new enterprise offerings emerging in cloud computing, Web 2.0 and virtualization.

December 4, 2008 Richard Adhikari

Hammered by the global recession, players in the IT industry will have to undergo radical changes to simply survive, according to research firm IDC.

But that’s not bad news for everyone.

Enterprises and small to midsized businesses (SMBs) may be poised reap the benefits of a transforming IT industry — in the form of new developments in cloud computing, Web 2.0 and virtualization, Frank Gens, IDC’s chief analyst, said during a teleconference presenting the firm’s predictions for next year.

For vendors, hunkering down in these tough economic times instead of transforming themselves to leverage these kinds of technologies could mean they’ll pay a heavy price, Gens said.

“Major economies will be close to flat, and the downside scenario would take them below zero percent growth — and it looks as if IT growth could go down to around two percent,” he said. “IT industry growth was seven percent in 2007 and fell to five percent in 2008, and it will take three years for the industry to return to the 2008 growth rates.”

But while the outlook for IT spending is grim overall, customers are still expected to spend big on radically market-altering trends such as cloud computing, virtualization, Web 2.0 and green IT.

“The disruptive vectors of the market will be among the highest growth sectors in 2009 as their advantages are magnified in a down economy, and suppliers who slow down their transformation will limit long-term viability and miss near-term growth.”

One area in particular — cloud computing — will be a growth sector for the next 20 years, he said.

“In 2009, the pace of adoption of the cloud will accelerate,” Gens said, with Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud storage players among the first major beneficiaries.

He also said IDC sees lots of cross-sector cloud partnerships to come, especially among major infrastructure providers such as EMC (NYSE: EMC), HP, Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA), Oracle, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Salesforce.com — as well as telecommunications service providers.

“Telecom services will be a very attractive partner as the others look to penetrate SMBs,” Gens said. AT&T (NYSE: T), British Telecom and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will all be major players, he added.

Players that deliver cloud-like services such as denser servers likewise will be strong, and IBM, HP, Microsoft, CA (NYSE: CA) and Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) will be among leading system providers that will offer bridges between cloud services and on-premises systems.

Getting ahead of the game

That concept had been anticipated by VMware (NASDAQ: VMW), which unveiled its vCloud initiative in September at VMworld 2008, its annual user conference. The goal behind vCloud is to enable customers to integrate multiple datacenters or federate internal and external clouds.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) will finally make clear statements of strategic intent about the cloud, and HP will leverage EDS, which it bought for $13.9 billion in May, for its cloud delivery strategy, Gens predicted.

IBM, which has launched several initiatives in the cloud space, will ramp up its offerings, while Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will buy Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) or another SaaS player such as SugarCRM. Meanwhile, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) will consider similar options to get into the SMB space.

The bad economy will lead businesses to ramp up support for telecommuting, and they will begin paying for employees’ computers and mobile devices to get them to work from home in order to shave costs, Gens said. This will make desktop virtualization a critical technology.

Anticipating this, several vendors have already begun ramping up their desktop virtualization offerings.

The convergence between business and personal computing being brought about by Web 2.0 technologies will become stronger, and vendors who cater to this will grow. More enterprises will seek to leverage such technologies, integrating with companies such as Salesforce.com and Facebook, Gens said.

Meanwhile, more enterprise IT vendors, both in hardware and software, will target the consumer market. For instance, business-centric devices like the BlackBerry will offer greater ties to consumer environments, Gens said.

On the other hand, consumer Internet brands such as Google, Amazon.com, (NASDAQ: AMZN), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Facebook will further their efforts in the business communications market, especially the SMB market, Gens said. And consumer devices like the Apple iPhone will offer better integration with business environments, he added.

Green is good

Enterprises and vendors can expect to see sustainable technology thriving in 2009, with green IT initiatives such as virtualization, space-efficient storage and cloud services being promoted under the umbrella of cost savings, Gens said. Enterprises will be able to snap up offerings that promise a near-term payback, but bigger-ticket green IT projects will temporarily be put on hold.

“Based on the green aims of the Obama administration, the focus in 2009 will be on energy efficiency and conservation,” Gens added.

Source URL- http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3789131/IDC+Economy+Will+Force+IT+to+Transform.htm

Gartner Report-Total SaaS revenue will double by 2012

MUMBAI, INDIA: Worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue in the enterprise application markets* is on pace to surpass $6.4 billion in 2008, a 27 per cent increase from 2007 revenue of $5.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to more than double with SaaS revenue reaching $14.8 billion in 2012.

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ERP skills shortage pushes customers to SaaS

By siliconindia news bureau

Bangalore: An acute skills shortage in enterprise software circles that is hitting SMBs especially is forcing clients to insist upon not only the merit of the software provided by a vendor but also the availability of resources to help implement such softwares, according to recent research from AMR Research analyst Dana Stiffler.

Though the big enterprise software vendors like SAP and Oracle are successfully promoting software products to manage business processes of small and medium sized businesses, the supply of skilled people to manage these products has not kept up with demand so far, reports Computerworld.

“SAP and Oracle application skills, in particular, are in huge demand, with service providers reporting their ERP practices continue to experience double-digit growth and strong pricing premiums relative to other IT skills,” Stiffler writes in the recent report titled ‘U.S. ERP Skills Gap Leaves Titans Vulnerable.’ “They tell us the packaged applications business is limited only by their ability to find, train and place appropriate resources.”

The net effect of the skills shortage is pushing existing and potential customers to consider alternative software delivery models, Stiffler contends.

“I think what it really means long term is that people are really crying out for a different delivery model for enterprise software and business functionality,” she says. “And it is my belief that combinations of SaaS and business process outsourcing (BPO) will eventually begin to emerge and make that gap be slightly less noticeable.”
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Information Technology explained in less than 3 minutes

SaaS Is The Future of Software

What Is Software-as-a-Service? and its benefits?

For decades, companies ran their software on their own infrastructure. Software as a service (SaaS) is a new software delivery model where a software vendor develops web-native software and hosts and operates (either independently or through a third-party) the software for use by its customers over the Internet. Customers do not pay for owning the software itself but rather for using it. In the SaaS scenario, a software provider is responsible for its availability (maintenance, scalability, disaster recovery, etc.).

Like any other multi-tenant models, SaaS is truly based on multi-tenant architecture where software, server hardware and their on-going maintenance are shared by all customers but customers’ data are kept virtually separately. SaaS is typically thought of as a low-cost way for businesses to obtain the same benefits of commercially licensed, internally operated (by customer) software without the associated complexity and high initial cost.

a2z Applications.com provides its On-Demand Software Platform as a Service (It is also known as Platform-as-a-Service) where customers can develop not a single software application but multiple applications such as Sales, Marketing, Billing/Invoicing, Human Resource, Activity Management, Issue Management etc. off the same business data.

SaaS Benefits

SaaS is a fast emerging software concept that allows you to “consume” software as a subscription via your internet browser. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or On-Demand software has eliminated the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), headaches of infrastructure and ongoing costs that traditional software requires. Below are the biggest advantages of SaaS model.

     Low Cost of Entry

As SaaS is delivered to customers as a subscription model, customers don’t have to pay big money upfront for rolling out a complex solution across the entire company. Customers can initially roll out for one test department of few people. The risk is very low even if it fails, and they don’t have to involve their busy IT staff. a2z applications.com offers a simple pay-as-you-go pricing with no long term contractual requirements.

     ZERO Infrastructure, ZERO IT Headaches

Since SaaS model has come into existence, investing in expensive infrastructure is no longer required. a2z applications.com monitors its platform – servers, software, networking components etc round the clock to ensure the SaaS platform is up and running at optimum speed. Customers will need to have basic computers with just internet connection and web browser. No more 800-page planning and implementation guides.

     Less Investment Risk

As small and midsize companies live in fear of the failure rates of large-scale ERP and CRM implementations, SaaS model gives them a great relief. They can implement their business solutions on a2zapplications.com platform with virtually ZERO risk involved and achieve the highest return on investment. Basically, instead of owning the software and necessary hardware components fully at the beginning of the implementation, customers pay monthly for using software, not owning- the monetary risk is much lower and less scary.

     Freedom of Choice of Vendors

With SaaS, unsatisfied customers can cancel their subscriptions and switchover to another provider easily as there is no locked in investment regarding hardware, software or data center.

Continued…

     Onus Is Always On The Vendor

If vendor’s software causes any big issues that prevent their customers from using the software, the vendor won’t be getting money from any customer for long. The vendor is always motivated to fix the problem.

     Economies of Scale

Subscription costs for SaaS software reflect the economies of scale achieved by “multi-tenancy”. Multi-tenancy means that all customers run their applications on a single instance of software.  This makes the overall system scalable at a far lower cost which means that the cost of software, infrastructure and expertise is shared by a large number of customers.

     Shorter Deployment Time

With SaaS, software solution can be deployed in days and weeks, rather than months to years with traditional licensed software.

     Increased Accessibility- Any Time @ Any Location

For years we have all played by the rules. You work in a cubicle, with a workstation, and interact with your team behind the firewall. But times have changed. Your co-workers, customers, your partners don’t sit in the same building. With the help of this platform you can do your work anytime and from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection, a computer/laptop and your imagination. You can update/share data, follow up constantly with your co-workers, customers, and partners when you are in the office or at home or on a business trip. Virtually with availability of cheaper broadband and wireless connections your business goes wherever you go on this earth. Is not it amazing? Your business critical data is always at your finger tip.

     Improved Security

As data security is most important for any business, the vendor provides the highest security at all possible levels- network, infrastructure, server and software. As the highly qualified security professionals and technologies are involved for monitoring and response to network and application breaches and attacks round the clock, customers can rest assured their data is more secured than any on-premise or hosted solution.

     Infinite Scalability

As SaaS is mainly designed for multi customers, the scalability automatically becomes an important design factor for the product from the beginning. A2zapplications.com is well designed and fit to accommodate its customers’ growth. Customers can add more users and applications instantly as they grow without any scalability issues.

     Greater IT Department Focus

SaaS offloads a great deal of IT pains incurred by software consumers in the traditional client/server model.  This leaves IT personnel to focus on improving the day-to-day technical operations of their company instead of being called upon to troubleshoot third party software or maintain aging infrastructure.

     Service Level Agreement (SLA) Adherence

Bugs reported by customers will be analyzed and fixed and the rollout of a patch or fix will happen on the same day.

     Constant, Smaller Upgrades

With SaaS, it is in the best interest of the vendor to keep customers happy and they can do so by constantly improving the application experience and adding new features to the platform in the form of consistent miniscule changes that add up over time instead of monster patch and upgrades that cost you time and money to implement and to be trained.