Back in the old good days of enterprise software, we did not need to worry about our customers. We delivered bits on DVDs – it was up to the customers to struggle with installation, integration, management, customization and other aspects of software operations. We collected all the cash upfront, took another 25% in annual maintenance. Throwing software over the wall … that’s how we did it. Sometimes almost literally…
I now live in the SaaS world. My customers only pay us if we deliver a service level consistent with our SLAs. We are responsible for deployment, security, upgrades and so on. We operate software for our customers and we deliver it as service.
But there now seems to be a new way how to “throw software over the wall” again. Many software companies have repackaged their software as Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and relabeled them as SaaS or Cloud Computing. It’s so simple, it’s so clever: Dear customer, here is the image of our database, server, analytical engine, ETL tool, integration bus, dashboard etc. All you need it is go to AWS, get an account and start those AMIs. Scaling, integration, upgrades is your worry again. Welcome back to the world of enterprise software…
AMI is the new DVD and this approach to cloud computing is the worst thing that could happen to SaaS. And SaaS in my vocabulary is still Software as a Service…
Not all SaaS is deployed on IaaS which means not all SaaS leaves the majority of security and compliance to the customer. Regardless, the buyer should know what they are buying and what they need to do to make their solutions meet their requirements. If you use solutions on IaaS, you should know that the provider can only secure the infrastructure and it is your responsibility to secure and be compliant with the data.
Roman’s assessment is spot on. It brings up the subject of what to do if a customer doesn’t know what they don’t know. And specifically, what’s the role of a traditional, on-premise SI integration partner.
You may want to see my blog and Tweet, “How a SI Can Let the Sunshine Through the Cloud and Enjoy Ancho Chili Chocolate Ice Cream”. This is an example of the how the SI can bridge the gap to SaaS, steady the course for SaaS (away from enterprise software) and enjoy the chili. http://tinyurl.com/y88vems.
Brian
Hi Roman,
totally agree. The Infrastructure as a service IaaS is a totally different and smaller value prop than a SaaS application, or a managed Platform as a Service.
Also see my blog reply quoting you on:
http://www.stefan-ried.de/2009/10/02/saas-is-value-and-ec2-image-deployment-less/
Cheers
Stefan
Excellent point Roman, made very concisely (wish I could do that
). This is a dangerous time whereby any old legacy software can be “cloud washed” by installing it on Amazon EC2. Too many people do this, and the industry will suffer as people realize that just pushing the enterprise software problem into another data center doesn’t really save them any substantial money over the long term.
-Rick
Well said Roman. I think you could continue to build on the analogy in future posts. I posted some thoughts (and resources) on all things cloud here:
http://cloudintegration.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/idc-updates-cloud-services/
More often than not I’m seeing “the cloud” defined with SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS as the key layers. The trouble is that IaaS (public and private clouds) are getting all of the attention right now and SaaS vendors (multitenant, web-based, easy to try/buy applications) are reacting by jumping on the cloud bandwagon. Similarly, “hosted” software vendors are now running on Amazon and trying to claim all of the historical SaaS benefits, when really it’s all about IT resource utilization and cost savings.
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jean
Well, sometimes we have to take the good with the bad. There are those out there who have no concern for the client and those few make it hard for the rest. We just need to do a better job to compensate for the bad ones. Thanks for the post.