41 articles in this selection

2009/09/23

Gartner's Andrea Di Maio seems to think so in his blog post a couple of weeks ago. According to Di Maio, the primary advantages for open source - vendor independence (since you have the source code) and cost (it's "free" plus you get to leverage the collective strength of the community) are no longer valid...at least not for government agencies. He argues that cloud computing offers a better proposition for these agencies and by extension, other larger enterprises. Is Di Maio right?...

2009/07/13

Business Intelligence is a hugely useful way of analysing data to discover ways of improving business performance. Using web-based BI the NHS is reaping benefits too.

2009/07/12

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to cloud pricing. As an adviser to companies from both sides of the issue -- cloud (IaaS and PaaS) providers and cloud users (and potential users) -- I've had an interesting perspective on the issue, which I will discuss in this and several future posts....

2009/07/10

According to a new survey of more than 300 enterprises by Gartner Research, software as a service has failed to impress business users across the board. Both U.S. and U.K. users polled were far from enthusiastic about their experiences with SaaS.

2009/07/08

Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner.

2009/06/25

MIT Technology Review has published a series of Cloud Computing articles in the 2009 July/August Issue

2009/06/25

Reports have it that LucidEra's venture capital is running out, and there's no doubt that in this economy, funding will not be forthcoming where demand is perceived to be weak. I've seen opinions about LucidEra's underlying technology and other factors contributing to the company's apparent demise. My takeaway is that the appeal of the SaaS delivery model is only as strong as the need for the underlying software. Simple as that....

2009/06/25

I liked the LucidEra product. My wife was about to add it on to her Salesforce.com system for her business. Without any prodding from me, she found the easy start-up, simplified licensing and almost transparent integration with Salesforce.com just what the doctor ordered. I suspect someone will pick it up and it will live on....

2009/06/24

You've made the leap, fought the fight, took on the man - pick your catchphrase. You've won. The boss has signed off on your cloud computing initiatives. Now what? Naturally, you'll be creating a full project plan, right? However, you'll need to tweak your standard practices to account for the unique characteristics (and flaws) of cloud computing. Let's run through eight questions you should have a good answer to before you pull the switch....

2009/06/24

I think BI's hard to bottle and you probably need to be very big, very focused (in either a vertical market or application-centricity sense), or both, if you want to succeed. Interestingly, LucidEra doesn't blame the category for its own demise.

2009/06/23

News hit today that on-demand analytics vendor LucidEra is shutting down - sad for a good company and sad for the SaaS BI industry in general. LucidEra helped promote the concept of SaaS BI and paved the way for other vendors. History may show that LucidEra was a good company with smart people but with the wrong timing. I reflected a bit on the structural differences of on-demand analytics vendors, and why some are successful and some not....

2009/06/23

It's early yet and the whole story has not been told. But the flurry of Lucidera 'news' - mostly retweets and wild speculation - needs at least a brief response. It appears, in several stories from apparently reputable news outlets quoting thus-far unnamed sources, that LucidEra, a SaaS BI startup, is shutting its operations down. The firm apparently ran out of money - its last round of funding was US$15.6 million in Series B venture capital funding in August 2007....

2009/06/23

Software-as-a-Service business intelligence provider LucidEra will cease operations by the end of this month, a company executive has confirmed. The vendor sent an email to customers on Thursday with the news and pledged to help them wind down their relationship with the company and its SaaS-based BI products by the end of June, said Darren Cunningham, vice president of marketing at LucidEra, in a phone interview....

2009/06/23

On-demand BI (business intelligence) vendor LucidEra is winding down its operations and has put its intellectual property up for sale, a person familiar with the company's situation said Monday. While the vendor is no longer selling software, its service is still live and the company is working with customers on transition plans, according to the source. It is unlikely LucidEra will continue operating as a stand-alone entity, but more news could emerge in coming days, the source said....

2009/06/22

It looks like the storm clouds may be gathering for LucidEra. Competitor GoodData has put out a press release claiming that LucidEra is 'offering to sell its intellectual property after almost four years of operations' and announcing a 'program to offer existing LucidEra customers free access to its innovative on-demand analytics service' with six months of free access to applications. There has been no confirmation (or denial) from LucidEra so far....

2009/06/16

Last week’s post about QlikView 9.0 prompted an inquiry from a manager who has been trying for a year to convince his company to consider the product. Having run into this issue many times, I easily felt his pain and we speculated a bit on what might help things along. One obvious tactic would be to purchase QlikView on a pay-as-you-go basis, presumably cloud-based. But a quick check with QlikView confirmed that they don’t allow this and have no plans to change....

2009/04/29

Business Intelligence as a Service (BIaaS) is peeking many interests within the IT community. As I stated previously Gartner beleives that 25% of all software will be delivered through an SaaS based service by 2011. At the same time Business Intelligence usage is expected to rise 130% by 2010...

2009/04/29

These two trends are converging now for a variety of reasons. Not the least of these is the realization that overarching business insight relies on the integration of information from a multitude of systems. Even companies that have standardized on all-encompassing enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications realize that sometimes key business data exists beyond the boundaries of such applications. While ERP vendors are concertedly designing and acquiring new modules, two facts remain: it takes time to incorporate new and acquired modules into the ERP infrastructure, and companies may have custom-built modules whose functionality outweighs the promises and even the reality of what ERP vendors provide....

2009/04/07

SaaS is effectively the same as outsourcing - you’re handing control over business processes to a third-party service provider. However, while SaaS delivery shares many similarities with outsourcing as a delivery model, there are serious caveats customers need to consider....

2009/04/07

Today’s market has all the right ingredients to launch the next wave of IT outsourcing and this time everyone is in. Not just the big guys with their cost accountants and offshore operations, but every business, large and small.

2009/04/07

Adoption of the software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) model is accelerating across the enterprise, but particularly in the call center, as companies are discovering the advantages today’s hosted solutions offer over premise-based systems.

2009/04/02

Article on Pentaho's recent agreement with Amazon to offer version 3.0 via Amazon's EC2 Cloud hosting service.

2009/03/26

A new Microsoft Study, released today (25/03/09), called the 2009 SMB Insight Report, says, among other things, that SaaS adoption by small and mid-sized businesses will grow to 86% in 2009.

2009/02/02

New global research forecasts a swift rise in development plans for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications in the next 12 months.

2009/01/15

Meer dan de helft van de softwareontwikkelaars verwacht dit jaar aan Saas-applicaties te werken. Dat blijkt uit een onderzoek van Evans Data onder 1300 ontwikkelaars in Europa, Azië en de VS.

2009/01/15

Industry needs to invest in application performance management if it is to improve the reliability of mission-critical SOA applications, according to a survey for CA.

2009/01/15

Computer Associates has dismissed analyst claims that Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is dead, and has released a survey that highlights the rising number of SOA deployments to backup its position.

2009/01/15

Today, Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), announced the release of a new benchmark report, "The Secret SaaS: On-Demand Supply Chain Management." This report explores whether a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application deployment is a long-term, viable option to enable different process areas of supply chain management....

2008/10/09

Once you've decided on a SaaS solution, the biggest challenge lies in figuring out what to look for in a SaaS vendor.

2008/09/23

SAP rose to become one of the information technology greats by selling game-changing enterprise resource planning software to the top end of town, but in the past decade has seen the big German business software outfit has had to look downmarket for growth....

2008/09/22

A few weeks ago I wrote how SOA is not just for integrating legacy systems but could also be a strategic approach for launching a brand new startup. I argued that startups can build their products and services from scratch in a true service oriented fashion without the burden of culture change issues, business process reengineering efforts, and changing the way the firm develops. Starting from scratch creates a tremendous opportunity to build it right from the start....

2008/09/22

As a slowing economy forces a capital spending crunch, software-as-a-service (SaaS) becomes a more viable solution – saving time, money and resources.

2008/09/22

Have you considered SaaS from a standpoint of legal and business practicalities? By using a SaaS solution, you effectively outsource part of your IT and in some cases, business processes, which were previously managed internally.

2008/09/17

Large-enterprise deployments of SaaS will not only touch internal business processes at multiple points in a few short years, according to Gartner Inc., but they will also be deeply intertwined with business process management systems (BPMS) in ways you might not expect....

2008/09/11

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry is changing due to popular demand. Consumers of SaaS applications are pushing back on independent software vendors (ISVs). Gone are the days when customers would subscribe to a SaaS application for $50 a month and then be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to integrate that application with the rest of their portfolio....

2008/08/25

The last few years have seen the success of Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, spread beyond poster child Salesforce.com to many other well-known companies. But there is always a contingent that asks: is SaaS just hype? Or rather, is this a permanent change in the technology landscape?...

2008/08/25

Some time ago during a discussion on ITtoolbox.com, I theorized about BPMS Cloud as the last, ultimate step, providing the final means to transition to a post-IT era.

2008/07/21

It takes a long time, many years in fact, to get software right, and the problem stems from the first step – understanding the market. Part of the issue is that the market does not understand itself.

2008/07/15

People and processes are at the heart of what's wrong with SOA as it currently exists in enterprises.

2008/07/14

HP is shipping new additions to its Business Technology Optimization (BTO) packaged software and SaaS (software as a service) offerings to help IT organizations manage change and resolve problems across business services and applications, and cut risks of...

2008/06/18

How organizations can handle the challenge of IT cost cutting and increasing BI needs.