The first part (Part II) of this blog series described the opportunities for software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand applications, especially in the current difficult economic milieu. Part IIa then analyzed the top five SaaS assumptions (misconceptions) recently outlined by Gartner.

Before any vendor can embark onto delivering a SaaS offering, it must thoroughly consider a number of harrowing SaaS technology choices and their implications. Thus, Part IIa also analyzed the decision’s impact on the functional footprint (scope) of the future SaaS product, after which the aspiring SaaS vendor must identify gaps within its in-house skill sets and define how to fill them.

This part continues with the other major remaining technical considerations before any vendor can embark on delivery of a SaaS offering. Read the rest of this entry »

The end of 2007, at least in the space that I cover, has certainly been “the most wonderful time of the year” for one vendor - NetSuite. True, prior to that, Deltek had a decent initial public offering (IPO) , and possibly even more important, a stellar Q3 2007 quarterly report thereafter.

However, on December 20, 2007 NetSuite Inc., a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites for small and medium-sized businesses [evaluate this product], opened for trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “N” (NYSE: N) after its more than successful IPO in which it raised $161.2 million. Various bloggers have duly covered the well-orchestrated IPO Dutch auction proceedings, such as AccManPro, BloggingStocks and ZDnet to name only a few. Read the rest of this entry »

Another buzzword (albeit not another three letter acronym [TLA]) that has slowly (or not) but surely crept into our collective mind is certainly Web 2.0. Although there have been some attempts at defining the term, such as at Wikipedia, ZDNet or TechTarget (and there are also some noble attempts of ZDNet bloggers, such as Richard MacManus or David Berlind), it is most likely that 10 different folks will provide 10 different interpretations (albeit most of these will revolve around mentioning wikis, blogs, AJAX, mashups, JavaScript, podcasts, social networking and so on).

Generally, I would venture to say any website that uses a little more interactive and dynamic technology (i.e. not just publishing “flat” HyperText Markup Language [HTML] pages) and supports some kind of online commerce, community, or other value-added activity that is enabled by the network would have Web 2.0 traits. But, is it still more buzzword than anything else, and is it being used to put “lipstick on a lot of pigs” even now?

Or, is Web 2.0 a genuine set of technologies that can even provide the “richness” of traditional desktop applications (read Microsoft Office) to the Web-based applications, without all the price and/or performance pitfalls/traps that are often associated with Office Business Applications (OBA)? At least we need to keep a close eye on how the next generation of office workers are using social networking sites/communities like Tagging, Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messenger (IM), etc., as they can give us a clue how effective collaboration should be driven into next generation of enterprise applications (of course, provided the security and privacy standards have been met). Read the rest of this entry »