3Qs, 3As and 3Rs with Treb Ryan of OpSource

So I'm wondering, where best to get some interesting insights (beyond my own, of course!) on SaaS and cloud computing right now? And I figure it makes sense to ask someone who makes a living helping to enable commercial pursuit of those technologies.

(See, it's out-of-the-box thinking like that that's why we industry analysts and commentators garner the huge levels of respect and remuneration we enjoy. But I digress.)

So I came up with three basic, yet insightful questions, and ran them by my respected industry colleague Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource. Treb's company provides solutions that enable “cloud operations for serious SaaS and Web businesses,” as it says at its Web site. OpSource has a strong partner ecosystem, a pragmatic business focus, and as you'll see below, a pretty sharp CEO.

Dortch: What is the single greatest challenge to success for software providers seeking to deliver SaaS/on-demand solutions?

Ryan: The single greatest challenge of success for a SaaS company is the cost of customer acquisition. Traditional sales models when applied to SaaS [are] very expensive [ways] to grow your business. SaaS companies should look at low-cost customer acquisition strategies, such as free on-line trials, “freemium” products or a robust channel base, to help lower the cost of customer acquisition.

Dortch: What is the single greatest challenge to success for enterprises seeking to deploy business-critical SaaS/on-demand solutions?

Ryan: For companies deploying mission-critical SaaS [or cloud-based on-demand solutions] it [is] usually integration with your existing SaaS and non-SaaS data – ensuring, for example, that you don't have a separate employee record for example in your Taleo [on-demand talent management solution] implementation than you do in you payroll system.

Dortch: What do you see as the next "great leap forward" for the SaaS/on-demand solutions market – technological, organizational, perceptual or otherwise?

Ryan: Ubiquitous APIs [application programming interfaces]. All SaaS data and interactions will be available as standardized API calls to any other cloud application. This will solve the integration question, open up new channels in the form of value-added solutions and really open the SaaS world [up] to whole new levels of innovative cloud applications based on multiple data sources and interfaces. Think of the unified contact [management features] on the new Palm Pre that brings in information from Facebook, LinkedIn, your personal [contacts] and [Microsoft] Exchange. Very cool.

First off, big thanks to Treb for the time and the interesting observations and insights. Now, my recommendations.

If you are or wish to become a successful SaaS or cloud-based solution provider, unless your solutions focus specifically on IT infrastructure management and optimization, try to stay the heck out of that business. Getting into it if you aren't there already is not only asking for trouble, it's almost guaranteed to make customer acquisition and other operational imperatives more expensive and difficult. It also flies in the face of the primary benefits of SaaS and the cloud.

If you are deploying or wish to deploy SaaS or cloud-based solutions, you should start with a clear, detailed plan of what specific business goal(s) or benefit(s) you're trying to achieve. That plan should include a detailed assessment of current relevant assets, including the information driving business decisions, actions and processes today. You may find that you need a foundation of accurate, consistent and timely information before you need any new SaaS or cloud-based solution. (See my SearchSAP.com column, “For MDM, start by getting to know your enterprise data” for more on this – it's importance extends way beyond SaaS and the cloud.)

Whether you are or want to be a SaaS/cloud-based solution provider, user or both, focus your attention on technologies, providers and partners that support open, well-documented APIs. Even if you never write a line of code, APIs represent a safety net of interoperability and integration that can smooth and increase the business value of your SaaS/cloud-based solution. It can also help keep you away from that nasty infrastructure stuff I mentioned earlier.

More from some of those I consider “the few with a clue” in upcoming outings. If you've got subjects or people to suggest, or questions or comments, do please let me know here and/or at medortch@dortchonit.com.

Why the Akamai-OpSource Mash-Up Is Important -- to SaaS Vendors AND Users!

You may have missed it in all of the recent SaaS-related hullabaloo, but back on March 30, Akamai and OpSource announced a joint relationship that had actually been in place since late 2008. The companies have been working on joint solution offerings that combine OpSource's Web operations management and optimization services with Akamai's high-performance, highly reliable application and content delivery services and worldwide facilities. (If you're a quick and focused reader of your Web browser's status bar or its equivalent, you can see many major Web sites actually pulling content from Akamai servers as those sites load.)

Now, other SaaS infrastructure solution providers are focused on making the technologies work and keeping them working – incredibly worthwhile goals, make no mistake. However, the Akamai-OpSource alliance is really focused on providing a more business-centric infrastructure. The two companies are offering the delivery, hosting, and operations services that let SaaS solution providers focus on what they (should, at least) do best – delivering good software.

Akamai also announced access control and customer visibility enhancements to its Web Application Accelerator service. The improvements are intended to ease access to Akamai-hosted SaaS and Web-based solutions from behind corporate firewalls, and to tell SaaS solution providers more about what their users are and aren't doing with those solutions.

Taken together, I think these announcements address two parallel sets of needs in ways that are quite effective. Akamai, especially in concert with OpSource, is helping to deliver levels of visibility into SaaS solution delivery that makes that process more reliable and easily manageable. At the same time, that visibility is reducing the “FUD,” or “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” still plaguing some SaaS skeptics. You can not only see when and where things break or go wrong (a technological focus), but you can see how well things are working when they are working well (a business focus).

I'm a big fan of both Akamai and OpSource. I think their alliance is a harbinger of good things to come for SaaS vendors and users. If you're one of those users, or considering becoming one, by the way, you should start immediately questioning current and candidate vendors about their use of or response to the current and likely forthcoming results of the Akamai-OpSource alliance. Those taking advantage of alternatives such as the alliance's offerings may stand a better chance of avoiding problems that can cause disruptive or fatal challenges to all but the strongest SaaS vendors – as I've warned here previously. (To see what I said, please see “Enabling the Inevitable: Selecting Strong SaaS Providers” and “Are Your SaaS Vendors in Trouble? And If So, What Can/Should You Do?” -- and let me know what you think.)