SaaS Integration Advice

Continued interest in software as a service (SaaS) stems from the pay as you go pricing, constant stream of innovation, rapid deployment options, and the ability to do an end run around IT.  As the number of options proliferate, enterprises will increasingly lean on SaaS as the mission critical system.  Thus, end users need an enterprise apps strategy for SaaS that addresses the “I” word - Integration.   The requirements and leadership for integration will lead to the pragmatic realization that SaaS can no longer be ignored by the IT department. As organizations brace for the proliferation of SaaS procurements integration should focus on:

• Data mapping - as data moves from one system to another, data must be transformed accurately.  More importanlty, service and related metadata are cataloged into a repository for discovery by management tools and development tools.
• Business process orchestration - granularity of web services must be harmonized so that the overall process flow is seamless among various systems.  Integration services actively manage service access, execution and quality of service.
• Quality of service - Like SOA, QoS metrics ensure that the information flow was delivered to the right system at the right time for the right person.  Characteristics such as security, transactions, performance, style of service interaction, etc. are explicitly identified and specified for each service

A few key solutions providers to watch out for in the SaaS integration space include:

• Blue Wolf Group - a system integrator with an Integration as a Service (IaaS) offering
• Boomi - a SaaS integration layer services company
• Cast Iron Systems - a software based integration appliance (i.e. hardware)
• Informatica - a data integration provider with a multi-tenant, cross-enterprise data integration on-demand service
• Magic Software - a business and process integration provider
• Pervasive- a data integration provider with an Integration as a Service (IaaS) offering
• Snap Logic - an open source data integration tool provider

The bottom line.

The successful adoption of SaaS solutions will transform usage from purpose built point solutions to integration into mission critical processes.  The result - SaaS integration will emerge as a key discipline in the overall enterprise app strategies of enterprises who seek to manage a portfolio of provisioned services.

Your POV.

Have you completed a successful SaaS to on-premise integration? How’d it go?  Was it easier/harder than your on-premise integrations? Feel free to share with me your view points. You can post here or sending me a private email to rwang@forrester.com

Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved. Reposted from http://blog.softwareinsider.org

Are Great Application Developers Making A Comeback?

"I don't want 10 developers. I want 3 great ones", is what a client told me when I asked him how his company was responding to the economic crisis. Of course, I think this is good advice even in good times and I think we have gotten away from this is recent years. Why? I think there are couple of reasons:

1. Outsourcing changed the focus from finding great developers to hiring large numbers of developers.
2. Project managers and business analysts worked their darndest to separate developers from the business problems that develoeprs need to solve. Agile has mitigated this a bit, but treating developers like machines on an assembly has been in fashion for years now.
3. There are fewer great developers because back in the day people passionate about software development gravitated towards a career in application development. Now it is a career choice for many and percentage of great developers has been diluted and thus they are harder to find.

I am asking every application development professional I talk to, including you, the following questions:

1. Compared to 5 years ago, is application development less difficult, same level of difficulty, or more difficult?
2. What qualities make a great application developer?
3. What is an example of a great developer in action?

Please let me know your answers. Thanks. Mike.

Event Report: Inforum 2008 Highlights Transition from Acquirer to Builder

Inforum’s  attendees were treated to a wonderful pre-keynote string quartet and a booming opening inspirational from both the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra and the rock band Innovation.  As the orchestra took a bow, Infor’s CEO Jim Schaper, emerged from the conductor’s stand to the surprise of over 5000 attendees.  The ever personable and charismatic CEO discussed how Infor would help customers compete in an emerging world of business networks that required innovation to be able to respond to change.  He also spoke of the $325M being invested back into the product in the next 4 years.

Key innovation announcements from the event include:

• SaaS offerings. Infor announced several SaaS options into the marketplace for users of Infor ERP SyteLine, Infor EAM (Enterprise Asset Management), and Expense Management.
  
  POV: Keep in mind, these are true multi-tenant SaaS options, not hosted On Demand plays like other competitors.  Discussions with attendees showed a mixed reaction to SaaS offerings, but in general there was receptiveness to a new lower overall cost model.  Most attendees believed this showed Infor’s investment into new technology.
• Expanded relationship with Microsoft SQL Server. The announcement of a single Infor point of contact for sales, maintenance, and support provides a cost competitive option for customers seeking to take advantage of significant performance and feature improvements in Microsoft SQL Server. 
  
  POV: Over 50% of Infor’s customers have deployed solutions on Microsoft SQL Server across 20 solutions.  This move delivers a win-win for customers in price and support.  In the future, new features in SQL server could provide customers with stronge BI capabilities.
• Role based launch pad. Infor MyDay is a web 2.0 user interface that’s role based to 150 personas that Infor has defined for its clients.  Infor’s MyDay product represents the leading edge thinking in user experience where tasks, alerts, and performance indicators are pushed to users based on their roles.   This first release involves 16 roles across four ERP products.
  
  POV: This builds off of Infor’s announcement last year where there was a push towards portals.  The key differentiator is the move towards persona based development which gives Infor a unique design approach on par with the Microsoft Dynamics approach.  Infor joins Lawson, IFS, and Epicor as early adopters towards more Web 2.0 centric approaches.
• ERP LX enhancements for the i-Series base. New enhancements delivery improved regulatory compliance and usability.  In addition, there are added globalization capabilities that support multiple languages in a single data basis and a key GMP (Bood Manufacturing Practice) requirement for the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authorit. 
  
  POV: The i-Series base has been neglected a bit for some time.  These improvements were well received by the ERP LX customers on site.  After speaking with about 23 customers on older versions of BPCS, there was now a good incentive to upgrade to ERP LX.

What it means

As one of the few enterprise apps vendors over $1B in revenues, Infor is set to be one of the survivors in the next economic cycle and a significant alternative for Oracle and SAP customers looking for purpose built solutions and divisional standalone applications.  In addition, Inforum as an event is well on its way of must attend events during the year and highlights the key trends in the SMB market.

Your turn

Do you own an Infor product?  Are you expanding the usage of Infor products?  Do you see these as more value oriented alternatives to the Big 2?  Do you have issues with Infor.  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.  Post a comment or privately reach out to me at rwang@forrester.com

Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved. Reposted from http://blog.softwareinsider.org

Oracle Acquires Primavera – Leading Front Office and Back Office Project Management Vendors Portends Big Changes in Project Based Solutions and in Project Portfolio Management Markets

Oracle’s announcement that it has acquired Primavera should not be seen as surprising – it’s a coming together of two market leaders. Oracle’s acquisition should be viewed as extremely positive. Primavera has long dominated the enterprise/capital project and program management space, from the planning and scheduling perspective, while Oracle is the leading project financials vendor. Primavera is a financially robust vendor with a solid management team; it has been a project management specialist for 25 years, however, rapid market consolidation had made it difficult for niche players like Primavera to break into enterprise sales; existing relationships with enterprise vendors kept Primavera relegated to field level projects. Oracle’s thin PPM offering made it difficult for the vendor to venture beyond the comptroller’s or cost account manager’s office; the combination of the two offerings will provide one of the most viable offerings in the PBS market.

This acquisition works for a number of reasons:

• Oracle seeks to expand its vertical footprint into project industries.  Oracle’s acquisition signals its intent to prioritize project based businesses such as architecture, engineering and construction, government contracting aerospace and defense, professional services, oil and gas, and utilities.  Primavera brings this deep industry knowledge in functional requirements and business process needs and they have a long working history. These vendors have collaborated for years in the power, construction and public sector markets. A long track record of successful integrations will make further expansion into these markets a short term reality. 

• Acquisition creates a barrier of entry into IT PPM. Oracle’s deep roots in the IT enterprise will make it difficult for other PPM vendors to crack into enterprise deals, even if they are present in production or operations management. Projects, portfolios and forecasting are aligned with financial planning more than they are aligned with operational efficiencies. Tight links into the financials systems will give Oracle a definite lead in the selection process.  Oracle’s has proven successful in cross-selling acquired solution into its install base.
• Opportunities abound in the project based solutions market. Project Based Solutions makes up approximately 60 to 70% of the available project management market – and Primavera and Oracle are the current market leaders. The majority of the major vendors are targeting IT PPM and IT Project management, which is the smaller segment. The big money is in capital and infrastructure programs – they make up.  Even if technology plays a key role, it is still considered a capital investment. Primavera is the market leader in construction and capital projects; Oracle is a key vendor on the financials and enterprise side of this market.   An integrated solution will make it even tougher for other vendors to break into a lucrative market.
• Oracle will leverage core assets across its acquired entities. Under the umbrella of Apps Unlimited, clients potentially can expect Oracle to build AIA integration points to Siebel, JD Edwards, Stellent, and Agile. The result – end to end proposal creation to project delivery to customer service to content management to product design.

Potential gotchas for the acquisition:

• Collaboration has to be on the forefront of the product offering. Project management, especially in areas of technology, is becoming lighter. A Forrester survey from 2006 showed that more than half of the IT organizations surveyed considered Microsoft’s Sharepoint as their primary project management tool      because everything else was too heavy[i]. Many industry experts believe that    focusing on collaboration, communication and risk management, not critical      path scheduling and control, make for successful project management. Both Oracle and Primavera are known for their functional depth, which may be overkill for smaller or less complex projects. This integration needs to be able to be agile enough to enable organizations to perform just enough project management in order to deliver successfully, without bogging them down in unnecessary process.
• Price points for SMB’s – Primavera has long had a reputation of being too expensive for small to midsized organizations, and with the plethora of open source and SaaS offerings, breaking into markets other than the typical enterprise customer has been a challenge. Oracle must explore more flexible ways of selling the EPM solution into the SMB market and at the divisional level of the enterprise.

 

Recommendations/Observations –

1. Prospective PPM customers should look at this as a positive move. Primavera is a successful standalone player with a strong management team.  Primavera’s architecture is flexible, so if there are other ERP modules currently in place, integration will not be a problem.
2. No major changes expected in the IT PPM market. Short term, there will not be any significant changes in the IT PPM market. Oracle and Primavera excel in PBS and will leverage this strength to take ownership of that market.
3. Expect vendors across other PBS categories to take action.  PBS vendors like Agresso, Augeo, CA, Deltek, Epicor, IFS, Meridian, NetSuite-OpenAir, and Tenrox are in positions to continue their move into different markets such as product/program management, service delivery automation, asset mananagement, and PPM.

Posted by Margo Visitacion and R "Ray" Wang

IBM Storms Into Cloud Computing With an ISV Friendly Pricing Model

The War for Mind Share In the Skies

The recent announcement of IBM’s Cloud Computing initiatives represents the latest front in the marketing and delivery battle for customers, partners, and ISV’s.  IBM has pulled together a mix of existing technologies and new developments into a four pronged attack that focuses on:

• Cloud service delivery to end customers - leveraging existing Lotus Collaboration technologies (e.g. Sametime Unyte) and the newly announced Bluehouse, a web-delivered social networking and collaboration cloud service.
• Customer integration of cloud services - delivering system integrator led practices around salesforce.com and Success Factors through IBM’s Global Business Services (GBS).
• ISV enablement of cloud services - providing ISV’s with tools to design, build, deliver, and market cloud services.
• Customer enablement of cloud services - helping customers deploy their own clouds through a suite of enabling technologies known as “Blue Cloud”.

Pricing Model Favorable to Broader ISV Adoption

With vendors looking to attract the greatest number of ISV’s into their cloud, OEM pricing often becomes an issue for PaaS adoption by ISV’s.  Typical barriers to entry stem from a disconnect on how middleware is paid for and how SaaS models generate revenue, prohibitive upfront costs, and the lack of scaled pricing.  IBM’s SaaS pricing pilot launched in July makes a point to address key barriers with low up front cost, fixed predictable annual costs, and a one year cancellation option.

What it means.

SaaS platform wars continue to intensify. Oracle’s announcement last week at Oracle Open World and this week’s announcement by IBM stresses the importance of this emerging battleground.  As the enterprise vendors join Amazon, AppNexus, GoGrid, and Google, expect the convergence of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 to hasten.

Your turn.

So now your turn.  Do you think the enterprise vendors will transition to the new world or will today’s cloud vendors become tomorrow’s enterprise veterans.  Post a comment or drop me a line at rwang@forrester.com

Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved. Reposted from http://blog.softwareinsider.org