It’s a testament to the times that as a new burgeoning technology is hatched by an “army of geeks” in a caffeine drenched frenzy, I can have a conversation at a party with a lawyer from a completely different field and find that he already has a rudimentary grasp of that technology - Cloud Computing.

Even if I normalize for the natural demographic skew of my location (San Francisco), it is impressive to consider how quickly this phenomenon has progressed towards the mainstream.  Clearly, the message has a lot to do with the rate of transmission.  “Software-as-a-Service”, or worse “SaaS”, didn’t catch the imagination as well as Cloud has done.  Which is ironic, considering SaaS is actually what the consumer/user really touches, and what was originally represented by “The Cloud” - a metaphor for all of the networking, server hardware, storage, and software bits and bobs that no one really wants to know about.  As I said in a previous post, it really does matter what you call something.

So I looked around for some other indicators of “Cloud Computing” crossing the chasm from geekland to consumerland, and didn’t find very many.

• Cloud computing for business goes mainstream
• Los Angeles Moves To Gmail And ‘Cloud’ Computing

Connect with me:

Posted under cloud, marketing

We’re very excited to announce Xuropa’s entry into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) official Service Providers Directory.  We’re proud  to provide to our customers unique CRM and AWS provisioning and automation technology.

While the Xuropa Application is Cloud and Data Center agnostic, our preferred public cloud provider is Amazon.  Back in 2008, when we first started development on a public cloud solution to move away from dedicated co-location data centers, we reviewed pretty much every public cloud vendor on the market.  The flexibility, level of automation, and security made AWS stand head-and-shoulders above other vendors.

As our market continues to grow, we’re very happy to see Amazon’s product offering grow with us.

API

The sophistication of their API was the real deciding factor why we went with AWS from the beginning.  If server instances cannot be started and stopped via a command API, then your cloud provider is missing a key part of “the point” of cloud computing.  This has been available from AWS from the start.

Security

It was clear from the beginning that AWS hold security as high a priority as we do.  Not only do they offer state-of-the-art physical and logical protection, they do not compromise usability or automation.  Practical and secure - a pragmatists approach to the cloud.

Performance

The Xuropa Platform hosts some of the most demanding applications on the planet.  Not only do we need the highest available performance machines today, but our customers continue to push the boundaries in terms of CPU and memory requirements.

AWS promisese to catch up and keep pace with our most demanding customers.

Global Footprint

Our customers are using the Xuropa Application to penetrate and serve global markets, and to deliver the lowest latency performance possible means that we need to be able to instantiate servers within those regions served.  AWS provides this facility unlike any other.

We look forward to a very fruitful partnership between our two companies, and are happy to contribute our unique products and services to the Amazon Web Services ecosystem.

Are you using the Cloud?

We’d like to discuss your move to a cloud delivery model.  Our application enables a step-by-step approach as you migrate your products and your business to the next paradigm in computing architectures.

Software-as-a-Service Delivery

The Xuropa Platform was architected from the ground up to support cloud deployment and monetization.  It may be early days for your particular industry, but we’ve been in this space for three years already - and we’re ready to support you in the migration of your business.  Drop us a line at saas_at_xuropa_dot_com to discuss.

Online Evaluations

Using the Xuropa Platform, you can easily allocate to your prospects cloud computing resources hosting your software for a day, a week, a month, or for however long your customer needs.  The system removes all need for IT resources and your customers don’t need to worry about downloading and installing software.  Your prospects securely upload their data into the cloud and use your software to perform realistic yet hassle-free evaluations.  The platform is secure, and you monitor all activity so you can see the progress your customer makes in the evaluation process.

Hands-on Demonstrations

The Xuropa Platform, with its integrated Social CRM system, enables you to easily reach out to your market via online social and professional platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.  From just the click of a link, your prospects are brought into a secure collaboration area from where they can connect to your dedicated cloud servers hosting your software to start kicking the tires and educating themselves on your differentiating features and value proposition.

Hands-on Training and Workshops

Pre-sales or post-sales, training and workshops are a valuable tool in moving a sale forward and getting new customers up to speed on your software.  They are traditionally very expensive propositions usually involving shipping out hardware and technical experts for setup and delivery of the material.  Take all of the hassle and the cost of logistics out of the process by delivering your material from the cloud via the Xuropa Platform.  You’ll save money and the valuable time of your subject matter experts.  Your customers will also appreciate the ability to take classes from their own desk and revisit material later for a quick refresher - all with no downloads, no installation, and no license keys to worry about.

Let us know how we can help your company leverage Amazon Web Services in the comments below.  Or drop us a line at saas_at_xuropa_dot_com.

- James

Connect with me:

Posted under CRM, Xuropa, cloud

Maybe it was just me, but the energy level at the 47th Design Automation Conference was higher than it’s been in a number of years.  It could have been a combination of things - general signs of an exit from The Great Recession; the M&A activity in the industry; a new market approach from Cadence got everyone a-buzz; and everywhere I went I heard discussions about Cloud Computing (and it wasn’t just because I was stood there ).

Bernie Meyerson, vice president of innovation at IBM, made a keynote speech on Wednesday that was wide ranging, but spent a great deal of time asserting that Cloud Computing is the future of IC Design.  Richard Goering wrote this up nicely on his blog here.  You should take a look.  The full keynote video is here, pick up what Dr. Meyerson had to say about the Cloud at around minute 38:00.

A crucial point to emphasize from Dr. Meyerson’s speech is the real issue at the heart of the computing challenge facing all industries, not just electronic design - IT resource overhead.  While it is tempting, as engineers, to focus on the technology of cloud computing (performance, upload time, latency, security, etc.) it is this business aspect of the equation that is the driver.  ie. The Total Cost of Ownership of data centers is out of control - driving a company’s balance sheet in the wrong direction.

If you missed the panel “Does IC Design Have a Future in the Clouds?“, don’t worry.  It was videoed and should be coming online soon.  For me, it was great fun to participate with a tremendous amount of interaction with the audience.  To the point where the Chair (Raul Camposano) had to cut off questions from the floor.  (He almost cut of Harry “The ASIC Guy“, but he was saved by the crowd.)  Richard Goering mentioned on his blog that he will put up a post about the panel soon, but in the meantime, you can catch a write-up of some of the highlights over at EETimes by Nicolas Mokhoff here.

If you were at the show, what were your impressions?  If you weren’t able to make it - did the various online channels get you what you needed?
Connect with me:

Posted under Xuropa, industry

“Huh?”, I hear from my friends,  ”SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) isn’t for all Enterprise Software?”  Let me explain.

This has been something I’ve been talking about from “the beginning“, but never got around to putting it up here for discussion.  I was finally prompted by a conversation I had over dinner with Richard Goering last week at the EDP Symposium and Workshop.  I could tell that he wasn’t expecting this perspective from me, and his question was a follow-up of what I’d said in my presentation earlier in the day.

The reality is, the world is not as as straight forward as some would have us believe - especially in some markets.  Thousands of software applications have characteristics that create barriers so high that delivery in a “salesforce.com“-like SaaS manner doesn’t make sense.  At least for a long time.

Now that we have a clearer definition of what SaaS is within the Cloud Computing stack, and we have a fuller understanding of the use models of software applications, we can more clearly see and articulate the nuances, layout the challenges and reasons why SaaS doesn’t make sense all the time, and what the alternatives are.

Software-as-a-Service Characteristics

Firstly, starting at the beginning, here is the Cloud Computing stack (I’ll go into more detail in a later post).

Cloud Computing Stack

The top layer, SaaS, today includes applications such as CRM , online docs, tax preparation, social networking, etc.   The characteristics of this layer most relevant to our conversation are:

• These applications were written from the beginning to be web-based
• They are applications that deal with what I consider the outer-circle of a company’s IP (a Rolodex, business processes, for example)
• They do not require interoperability with any other software application or data
• The user interface is consistent across all users
• In the main, these applications were created by market segment newcomers

Platform-as-a-Service Characteristics

The second layer, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a bundling of compute resources, storage facilities, datasets, an integrated development environment (IDE), and some proprietary APIs.  The characteristics for this layer are:

• Tools to develop, debug, and deploy new software applications
• You have to use the infrastructure of the PaaS vendor

Enterprise Software Requirements

When we step beyond the “safe” outer layer of IP and start dealing with the “crown jewels” of a company, what do we find?

• An installed base of millions of lines of code that has been used for years or even decades
• Applications that work with (or are used to generate) a company’s core IP
• IP protection concerns vary
• Applications that are part of sophisticated and complex flows of third-party applications and databases
• A varying degree of customization in order to meet customer-specific work flows, data formats, and other internal “standards”
• Vendors with shareholders and investors that base their investment upon expected business models and revenue streams

The Rub

All of the above enterprise software characteristics present challenges to a company in moving to a SaaS model.  However, the most crucial aspect of this list is that it’s not all one-sided.  If the list were purely issues for the vendor or the customer, then a straight forward migration can be imagined due to simple market forces.  But when both sides of the purchase equation have reasons to stick with the status quo, migration is stymied to the point when only a really large economic imperative causes the shift to occur out of necessity…or it takes a much longer time for the natural migration to occur.  It took Salesforce.com about 10 years to go from being an ASP startup to a $1B SaaS company.  Even though the rate of change is increasing, we’re still talking about a while.  Don’t believe me?  Have you taken a look over a bank tellers shoulder recently?  Or an airline booking agent?  Surprised to see the DOS app running there?  It’s running in a shell, but it’s still DOS.

Having said that, the transition will occur.  The question is, “How?”.  It will be a while before companies go out and rewrite their software to be “pure-SaaS”.  In the meantime, we need to look to scenarios where a move to the cloud makes sense, and we need a different type of SaaS to support the move.  Let’s call it “Hybrid-SaaS”.

The Move

I don’t think there’s any argument that we have an economic imperative and cloud computing is very attractive.  So the pieces will eventually fall into place, but what will that transition look like?  Here are two plausible scenarios:

The Little Guy

This would be a small company with a limited sales channel and a need to find growth somehow.  So they’d be more willing and able to explore mixed business models easily differentiating between product brand, level of service, market segment, or geography, etc.  If they have a differentiated product, great, but if they’re competing with an incumbent the agility of a Hybrid-SaaS model may provide them an edge in penetrating “the long tail” of a market.

The New Product

This is a new product within a large and established company.  The scenario is exactly as Geoffrey Moore described in a presentation I attended a few weeks ago.  Although the large company has a strong and established sales and support channel, the challenge to the new product is that it is essentially ignored.  The new product is risky for the sales organization as it could sour a relationship if something goes wrong, and that could impact existing business.  Also, the new product is not likely to be purchased “in volume”, and so the return on what would be a hard and long evangelical sale is not there.  This scenario kills new products and hinders large companies moving into new market segments.  Another opportunity for “Hybrid-SaaS”

There are more, but this will do to get us started.

Getting Started

So now we have a couple of realistic scenarios in which a company or a business unit would consider moving to the cloud.  The economic imperative is established, but so many hurdles remain.  In a later post I’ll go into more detail (this is already getting way too long) of what Hybrid-SaaS looks like, but for now, let’s break down the problem and go back to our friend Geoffrey Moore.  This is the Technology Adoption Curve, it’s inevitable, and we need to start somewhere.

Hybrid-SaaS

If we were to put software into the cloud, what would the solution need to look like?

• No re-write of the product code
• Easy installation of the software as-is
• Zero IT overhead
• Cloud and data center agnostic
• Manageable by marketing, sales and applications engineering
• Easy, secure, and manageable access for customers
• No change in licensing mechanisms
• No client-side installs
• Scalability across an entire market
• Collaboration tools
• Management tools

The solution needs to meet these requirements technically.  Because we’re not going to re-write our code, we need to start at the infrastructure layer (IaaS) and build up.

We also need to look at some early adopter use-models.  Scenarios that get value out of the cloud in a way that is in line with business objectives.

How do we leverage the Cloud?

Using the cloud and monetizing the delivery of software via the cloud may be too much of a challenge initially.  IP is still a concern to many customers.  Business models need to be tested, etc.  However, there are ways that the cloud can be used to materially impact a business, increase revenues, lower the cost of sales, and shorten the sales cycle.  Here are some of the usage models for when your software is on the cloud in an environment that meets the above requirements:

Pre-Sales

• Lead generation
• Self-qualification
• Self-education
• Training
• Evaluations

Post-Sales

• Account penetration
• Self-education
• Training
• Upgrade campaigns

Development

• Third party collaboration
• Beta testing
• Focus groups

Using the cloud in this way, value is extracted and existing business models are maintained and actually enhanced.

Fundamental to all of this activity is a deepening of the engagement between the vendor and the user.  From this point we can begin to approach the chasm with a greater understanding of what life on the other side should look like for both sides of the vendor/user equation…because it’s not straight forward.

Posted under Xuropa, industry

Last week I had the honor and the pleasure of presenting Cloud Computing and Electronic Design at the Electronic Design Processes Symposium in Monterey.

It was interesting to find that many of the members of the audience have used or are using Cloud Computing in some capacity within their work.  Not surprisingly, most implementations are still ad hoc or experimental.  However, there were a significant number of discussions leading to more formal adoption of Cloud Computing.  We’re definitely moving…

Here is the presentation I made.  Is your company using or looking at using Cloud Computing?

Posted under Xuropa

Many people have asked, “Why did you start Xuropa?”  And a recent blog post by Harry Gries got me to thinking beyond the proverbial napkin anecdote (it really was a napkin!).

Software liberation!

Hassle free and immediate access to the most sophisticated software on the planet! That is Xuropa.

We want to eliminate the bottlenecks and roadblocks currently between the user and the software - downloads, installation, license agreements, license keys, even geography and time zones - they all have to go!

For the user, it’s all about saving time.  Without Xuropa, to learn or evaluate new software requires a long and drawn out process involving management, IT, the legal department, sales guys, sales or applications engineers…a lot of leg work and hassle on top of their regular “day job”.

With Xuropa, they can sign in, kick off a session, and immediately have access to some of the most powerful software in the world.  Simple and quick.

The benefit to vendors is just as compelling - 24/7 access to more potential customers while reducing costs and using fewer resources.

Without Xuropa, a vendor currently has to ship out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of expertise with the software as part of the sales process. Simple prospecting takes tremendous resources and valuable time. The cost is even greater when dealing with global customers in such growing economies like India, China, or Eastern Europe.  Alternatively, they’re shipping CDROM’s or asking their prospects to download huge evaluation versions of their software - an extremely frustrating exercise for the user, and piracy prone for the vendor.

What vendors really need is a platform that helps accurately identify interested buyers/users and quickly and securely delivers their software to those users for trials and evaluations. With Xuropa, vendors ensure that prospects around the world and around the clock get their hands on their product immediately in a completely secure environment.

Xuropa does this by making software available on public or private clouds within a secure and automated web-based application.  The Xuropa Application results in Zero IT overhead, complete access control, with a set of analytics and marketing tools to engage with the user remotely and help them help themselves through the process.

In short, Xuropa is a web-based application that delivers enterprise software to users via the cloud - Your Software in the Cloud.  Simple to use, easy to set up, highly automated, and secure.

Consistently, our customers tell us that the Xuropa Platform enables them to do more with less.  Everyone is looking to grow markets with the same resources, or service the same customers with fewer resources - or both.  And that’s what Xuropa enables.

Along those lines, as we’re all working our way out of the Great Recession, we know that companies have been very creative in surviving and even thriving.  We’d like to hear your ideas and offer a prize for some of the “best”.  For more information, to add your idea, and potentially win a year on Xuropa, check out the Doing More with Less Competition here.

Posted under Xuropa

Great news from Amazon Web Services (AWS) yesterday - they’ve made it easier to get your data up into the cloud.  All you have to do is ship them the raw SATA drive and they’ll plug it in.  Easy!  And they’re now accepting capacities up to 4TB.

This is why we work with AWS - they’re constantly raising the bar higher and higher.  They take care of the infrastructure, and we deliver the Platform and Software layers to our Enterprise Software customers.

Anyone out there need more than 4TB?

This announcement got me thinking about the other direction of the data transfer that still hounds Enterprise Software vendors.  Most vendors still deliver most if not all of their products as client-side installs. 

With the goal of lowering the cost of sales, software and tools vendors enable customers to download from their website (the cloud) evaluation versions of their products.  This would be fine if these distributions hadn’t grown to be hundreds of megabytes themselves!  A very large semiconductor vendor told me that it takes a customer 3 1/2 hours to download their software over a T1 line in North America.  And of course, it takes many attempts for it to be successful.  Not a scalable model and one of the many reasons why we promote moving evaluations and pre-sales training to the Cloud using Xuropa.

The reality is, this problem is only going to get worse.   (Numbers provided by OECD.)

WW Broadband Penetration, OECD 2009

Broadband Pentration Growth, OECD 2009

Software distributions are only going to get bigger, and with broadband penetration low and not climbing at a huge rate, something needs to change.  Of course, corporations will always be at the forefront of broadband adoption, but the rise of virtual teams and off-site workers will continue to exacerbate the problem of a lagging telecommunications infrastructure.

Although a full SaaS model would remove this problem.  There are many other obstacles and reasons why a complete move would not work for many of these software vendors.  However, moving the front end of the acquisition process (pre-sales training and evaluations) just makes sense.  Doesn’t it?

Posted under Xuropa, industry

Phil Wainewright writes a very informative blog over at eBizQ that brings in his thoughts, observations, and views on Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service).  Really good stuff that I highly recommend.

Every now and then I need to pinch myself though.  In a recent post, he wonders if standalone Enterprise 2.0 (think, “social networking tools inside the corporation”) vendors will survive as more SaaS vendors integrate these types of features into their products.  It’s an interesting thought, but already?

For this to happen, all customers of software will have moved at least one of their “ubiquitious apps” to a SaaS vendor that has incorporated one or more of these corporate-social feature-sets.

Although Salesforce.com have made great in-roads, and Google has shown how to get into large corporations or government agencies with gmail, two numbers from Gartner should give pause:

• 2013 Revenues for SaaS: $16 billion
• 2013 Revenues for Enterprise Software: $300 billion

Given that SFDC revenues will likely account for 10% of the forecast SaaS revenues for 2013 and the huge gap between the two numbers overall, it appears likely that the Enterprise 2.0 vendors will have a large enough market to go after. 

Taking a step back a bit, considering where we are in the technology adoption curve for SaaS overall, and how much uncertainty exists around how the landscape will look ultimately, isn’t it too early to call the demise of any SaaS player?   

For some time to come, there will be a need for technologies and applications that operate at the Platform level to fill gaps and smooth interoperability between products, solutions, and platforms.  Even though ultimately many of these point solutions will be acquired or spun-out as economics and strategic positioning dictate.

Rather than looking over their shoulder for a SaaS player integrating their functionality, they should be more concerned about serving the market that’s out there, providing value, and generating revenues.

We still have a long way to go…

Posted under industry

Monterey Bay by "The City of Monterey"

Sponsored by The Design Automation Technical Committee (DATC) and the IEEE Computer Society, the event will be held in Monterey from April 8-9, 2010.  Cloud Computing is included in the “Brave New World” session starting at 4:30pm on the 8th.

Event Information

Registration

Posted under industry

The Xuropa Platform is used by Enterprise Software vendors to deliver their products via the cloud as-is. “Cloud agnostic”, the Xuropa Platform provides the web experience, user management and analytics, and sales and marketing tools to deliver your application within an engaging web experience.

The Xuropa Platform can be used to deliver remote hands-on demonstrations, evaluations, and training. The platform can also be used for full Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery and monetization of your enterprise software.

Watch the below video to find out more.  Even better, contact us for a demonstration and to take the cloud for a spin! saas at xuropa dot com.

Posted under Xuropa