Site Archives SaaS Platform

Build vs. Buy and Economies of Scale


When formulating the architectural foundation for a SaaS application, ISVs will inevitably encounter the age old build vs. buy decision.  SaaS enablement is hot right now, giving vendors a plethora of options on the buy side. 
Nick Carr has an interesting argument in support of the buy scenario - specifically urging vendors to buy into a horizontally aligned […]

The Complexity of Monetizing SaaS Application Usage


I’ve been following a series of blog posts by Lars Fløe Nielsen, Michel Baladi and some other folks from Microsoft, Sitecore and other firms. The posts follow a proof-of-concept project established by the firms to investigate how a “SaaS Hosting Platform”, or SHP, ought to look like. I appreciate the effort that has gone into […]

Vendor Perception of the SaaS Platform Landscape


We’ve written quite a bit here about Salesforce’s Apex… and, admittedly, we’ve taken a somewhat critical stance on it.  Questions of identity crisis and ambiguity have boiled down to “Is it a SaaS platform, or a CRM platform? Is there a difference, and does it really matter what they call it as long as it is […]

For Your Consumption: Article on Datamation


Just a quick note: Datamation recently invited me to write an article for their website.  The article, entitled Repealing the SaaS Tax, was published a few days ago and it focuses on SaaS enablement, and more specifically, enablement through platforms, so check it out and let me know what you think!
PS: Sorry for the late notice

Get Ready for SaaS, says Gartner


Via Business Two Zero, here is a press release recently issued by Gartner titled Gartner Says Service Providers Must Prepare Now for the Software as a Service Wave. The release opens with numbers: The worldwide SaaS market reached $6.3 billion in 2006, with a forecast of growth to $19.3 billion by year-end 2011.
I want to […]

Does the SaaS Ecosystem Concept Lean Toward Natural Oligopoly?


Rare is the day where using the phrase “SaaS Platform” doesn’t invoke the usage of “SaaS Ecosystem.” Heck, it even found its way to the title of the keynote panel I’m part of at April’s SaaSCon: Understanding SaaS Platforms and Ecosystems. The reason for this “two peas in a pod” syndrome is pretty easy to […]

Is Salesforce.com’s Apex a Platform?


It’s been a few months now since Salesforce.com introduced Apex to the world, and we’ve all had ample time to digest the concept, analyze it, debate about it, and just generally figure out our own positions on the proposition.  One thing’s for sure, the announcement of Apex brought the total level of industry ’saas platform’ buzz somewhere into the realm […]