Comments on: Farewall to PaaS Provider, Coghead

By: Sebastiaan van der Meulen

Sebastiaan van der Meulen — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:45:15 +0000

I am surpised and disappointed at the decision by SAP to leave existing Coghead customers out in the cold. Unfortunately such decisions affect all providers of ‘Service in the Cloud’ solutions.

If anyone is looking for an alternative to Coghead that is built on Adobe Flex, have a look at PerfectForms. And if you’re in Australia or New Zealand we offer a locally (Sydney) hosted version of PerfectForms rebranded as BizForms. Details here: http://www.novera.com.au/bizforms/overview

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:21:16 +0000

A viable alternative to Coghead is Officebased.com. Same technolgy, Flex based SaaS ,

By: EDunigan

EDunigan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:04:14 +0000

With the closing of Coghead, many companies are now thinking twice about SaaS offerings. As an employee of an online database company,TrackVia, I know the value SaaS offers and also understand the potential hesitation companies may have. We recently recorded a podcast with our CTO and CEO, highlighting tips companies should consider when evaluating SaaS offerings. For example, look at the price the service charges and see if it is a sustainable price.
Check out the blog and podcast here:

http://www.trackvia.com/blog/2009/03/02/saas-tips/

By: Antonella

Antonella — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:47:10 +0000

Disclaimer: Self-promotion

InQuest Technologies (www.inquesttechnologies.com) would like to invite Coghead users and partners to learn about IQ9, the first enterprise Business Application Platform that allows users to configure (not code) 100% web-based applications that include Workflow Automation, Document Management, Project Management, Asset Management and Collaboration capabilities.

With IQ9 you never have to worry about your SaaS provider pulling the plug - you get an installable license that you can run in your data center or you can have it as a SaaS deployment in ours. You also never have to worry about all those exorbitant hidden storage fees and file transfer fees some providers charge.

To learn about IQ9, give us a call at 800.254.4050 or check us out online at http://www.inquesttechnologies.com/Company/Contact_Us/ - no gimmicks or short, free trials just a great application that you can seamlessly transition to from Coghead and run your business. There is a reason that organizations like ADT, The US Navy, ConEdison and NBC have deployed hundreds of applications using IQ9.

By: Michael Dunham

Michael Dunham — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:43:24 +0000

I think there is one more thing (yeah, I always do) that should have been considered in the Coghead business plan…

Money. Coghead hosted a lot of DIY, free, small time operators who had no intention of ever buying the service. This isn’t new, Google does the same thing, but Google can afford to lose money on the deal.

If there was a stronger push in their business model for the free users to pay to play at some point - the short-comings would have become self evident a lot sooner. Most likely before all the money and VC patience ran out. With that push, they could have (perhaps) retooled their approach in some way to gain more (paid) acceptance. Instead their numbers floated them with a combination of moribund attempts and small projects going nowhere fast. You can fool yourself with those numbers only so long if you have don’t have a lot of income. The hosting, staff pay, marketing, etc have to come from somewhere…

They did manage to slip the Flex front end in - but I would argue that was too little too late - and there still was no serious attempt to test the waters by cutting the cord on the free accounts.

By: Russ Hertzberg

Russ Hertzberg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:34:17 +0000

The .Net common language runtime is an excellent technology, no question. I wonder what is next up for .Net in terms of newly supported programming languages via Common Language Runtime.

Apex and the C# like Bungee language/IDE I do not think were ever intended to provide portability. My guess is that they want to send a message to programmers that know C# and/or Java that there is less of a new language learning curve. AS you say, that is a far cry from portability.

By: Sinclair Schuller

Sinclair Schuller — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:17:32 +0000

Russ,

Good point with respect to the languages being similar to others. Unfortunately, that’s about 10% of the equation. Both Java and .NET are full stack technologies. To attempt to be compatible so that portability is even *remotely* possible, a whole hell of a lot needs to happen beyond language similarity.

One of things that I find appealing about .NET is that it decouples the language (C#, VB, IronPython) from the runtime, allowing them to evolve independently while maintaining some semblance of compatibility.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:36:49 +0000

It is a shame to see Coghead go out of business but I take it as a cautionary tale. SaaS is a nice option but comes with great risk. If the service is no longer offered (for whatever reason) - the users can be stuck with a tremendous business continuity problem. If you own “traditional” installed SW and the vendor goes out of business, you still have the application and can continue to run it. Yes, there may be no more support, but you are not left dead in the water.

By: Russ Hertzberg

Russ Hertzberg — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:55:43 +0000

Force has taken a not quite as radical dev language approach with Apex, described as ‘Java like’. They are in a different situation than Coghead with plenty of ISVs and channel partners wanting to build widgets and connectors for a growing and large Salesforce install base. Any developers want to comment on how ‘Java like’ Apex is?

Then there is Bungee, with a ‘C# like’ new development environment including a complete IDE for their platform, and some radical pricing. They would seem to be running close to the same risk as Coghead. Any developers care to comment on how ‘C# like’ the Bungee dev language and IDE is?

And finally, do not forget to categorize under the ‘it can work’ column that not so little company in Bedford Mass called Progress, who started with one of the first 4GLs and is now a very robust platform company and a player in their own right in enabling SaaS with platform technology in their own vibrant community.

It is not quite a C#/Java only world for sure these days in web dev. But over time some languages in heavy use now may eventually go the way of Delphi. In the late 90s it was the very hot Object Pascal for Windows client/server from Borland. While it has turned into a fringe language, i have read that some of the Delphi designer/developers wound up at MS creating C#.

By: Anand Mohan

Anand Mohan — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 07:34:30 +0000

With Adobe flex (used by Coghead) one can come up with very intuitive UIs which will make adoption easier. So, I am not sure if user adoption was actually a reason for the shutdown.
Probably, SAP saw value in the solutions offered by Coghead and wanted to integrate it with its services. SAP has invested in Coghead earlier.