Does Google Wave Represent the next “Wave” in Communication and Collaboration?

I watched with interest the screencast of Google’s Announcement of their new product called “Google Wave” at the recently concluded Google I/O Conference. Google I/O is the search giant’s annual developer event in San Francisco and was the perfect venue for their launch of a product they envision to be a new platform and really brings with it a new paradigm for communication and collaboration.

Google Wave (currently in developer preview) essentially brings together in a single place all channels for communication or collaboration a user may need such as Email, IM, Blogging, Microblogging and others. So what you may ask? Aren’t there a lot of unified communication applications (ie Skype)/messaging aggregators (ie Digsby, Pidgin)/content management systems (ie Sharepoint) that do the same thing?

Well not quite. Google Wave (from my understanding) does it in a slightly different, and ultimately more interesting and clever way: they treat each type of communication (be it text, posts, images, videeo, URLs, etc.) as discrete objects, which can be be presented, manipulated, aggregated, and distributed in countless ways and in real-time. They have come up with their own protocol to allow for easier federation and aggregation, and possibly faster transmission, unencumbered by the “legacy” limitations of other communication protocols (such as email) or proprietary limitations of other protocols (such as IM and Skype). They allow “hooks” into that data so that third party developers can easily extend it (ie on-the-fly spell checking, translation) or integrate it with other applications (ie posting on blogs such as Blogger, posting in microblogs such as Twitter, presenting on social networks or portals such as Facebook or Orkut), and other forms of data (ie video and photos). They really thought out the user experience, and really push the boundaries of what can be done today by programming using the web (they use HTML 5 and use the Google Web Toolkit as their presentation framework).

The best thing about Google Wave? Its completely open (as in open standards and open source) so that there will be no encumbrance to (Google hopes) its wide spread adoption. You can deploy it on-premise (behind the corporate firewall) or use it in the cloud (on Google’s own servers) and federate the servers so that servers can still inter-operate or communicate. In that way it is similar to email.

Its difficult to describe just what  Google Wave is all about. Check out this video demonstration so you can see and learn more about it for yourself:

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, IT, Internet, Open Source, Web 2.0 , collaboration, communication, google, google wave, wave, youtube

Zoho Launches Zoho Gadgets

This is interesting. It seems these guys never tire of building new things into their platform. Zoho launched recently its Zoho Gadgets, which allows users to embed Zoho apps to be embedded in any OpenSocial compatible site or social network. This includes Orkut, iGoogle, Gmail, Friendster, Ning and Yahoo. Although not OpenSocial compatible, Zoho Gadgets also support embedding on Facebook.

Zoho Gadgets connects you to iGoogle, Facebook, Orkut, Gmail etc | Zoho Blogs

Zoho Gadgets launches today with the aim to connect Zoho applications with external applications. Zoho Gadgets, available at http://gadgets.zoho.com, can be integrated/embedded with online applications like iGoogle, Facebook, Orkut, Gmail & more. To start with, we are offering six Zoho gadgets.

* Zoho Docs (Including Writer, Sheet & Show)
* Zoho Mail
* Zoho Calendar
* Zoho Tasks
* Zoho Contacts and
* Zoho Planner

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Web 2.0 , gadgets, opensocial, zoho

Zoho SaaS Perfect Solution for Bringing IT to Emerging Market SMBs

Yesterday I gave a talk on how companies, specifically SMBs (Small to Medium Businesses) can now take advantage of IT quickly and easily with SaaS and cloud computing.

IT, specially business systems or enterprise software, have traditionally been out of reach for SMBs of its complexity and high cost. With SaaS,
systems like collaboration software, databases, and transactional applications such as ERP and CRM are now made easily available in ways that are easily understood. For one thing, SaaS applications do not require complex IT infrastructure such as routers, firewalls and servers. To use SaaS apps, users require nothing more than an Internet-connected PC or even a mobile device to start using the applications. Another is that they are usually billed on a fixed monthly amount, according to what customers need or consume–similar to utility services such as power and water. SaaS apps are also usually designed from the get-go as tools for multi-user collaboration. This allows for improved efficiency and smoother coordination among company workgroups, departments and teams.

Now when people talk about SaaS the first thing people often ask is security, and the event where I spoke was no different. People are usually apprehensive about putting their company data into the intangible, amorphous Internet “cloud” so to speak. I made a point about how people have been comfortably uploading private data online with apps such as Google mail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail for years. Many have found it to be even better and more reliable than their corporate mail servers (I know of several companies who use Gmail as a backup for their mail systems on their own domain). Over the past few months, even become comfortable uploading with uploading sensitive personal data on the Internet with social networking sites such as Facebook and Friendster.

Now despite this, some key issues remain. Of course one is Internet access. To use SaaS, companies should have an “always on” Inernet connection. Integration with legacy apps can also be a challenge, as well as using SaaS for high volume, fast throughput, quick response type applications such as Point-of-Sale systems in a fast-paced retail environment. Another challenge is just simply navigating the abundant, sometimes confusing array of choices available in the SaaS market.

Good thing there is Zoho. Zoho is a SaaS company launched in 2005 that offers a wide range of online software. They offer everything from personal productivity apps such as e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, wiki software; to business systems such as customer relationship management. All in all, Zoho has over 20 productivity and collaboration apps, all for prices that, by US and traditional software standards, are dirt cheap–but for emerging markets such as India (where Zoho came from) and the Philippines are just right.

For the whole lot of Zoho’s business applications, it costs a mere $50 per user per year or roughly the same amount one would spend for prepaid cellphone load locally in a year. By contrast, the Professional Version of Microsoft Office, sells for as much as a months to two months’ salary for most Filipinos.

Now cheap doesnt mean poor quality. So far have been very happy with using Zoho as an end-user. The breadth of applications is simply unmatched by any SaaS vendor, including Microsoft, Google or Salesforce. Its simple and easy enough to use for SMBs and priced just right. I also traveled to India and have seen their operations and have met their management (full disclosure: their parent company Adventnet is a partner of the company where I work). While there, I was impressed by their culture and their strategy, which gave me the impression that they really are into this business for the long haul–which as a partner and reseller gives peace of mind. They also have a 200 strong software engineering talent bench (with an additional 800 more from their sister company)–a number that easily beats many pure play SaaS vendors (including Salesforce.com?) in terms of technical resources.

Find out more about SaaS and Zoho today. Contact me via my LinkedIn page if you want to find out more or follow me on Twitter (webwonker).

Filed under: Business, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, IT , Cloud Computing, computerworld, saas, talks, zoho

Customer Data in Cyberspace: What was the tipping point?

Somebody at one of the LinkedIn groups I am a member of posed an interesting question. His question was (and I paraphrase a bit here: “what was the tipping point for customers to start entrusting online services like Salesforce.com with sensitive customer information?”

The entire post I reprint below:

LinkedIn: Discussion: CRM Experts

Salesforce.com , an asp log-in CRM system that involves no downloading of software, now has 55,400 enterprise customers world-wide and has even spawned imitations (eg., SugarCRM.com ).

I must confess to initially running with the herd – the cynics. It was easily done. The conventional wisdom was that large, medium and small organisations would not accept the risks (real and perceived) of hosting their customer data (arguably their most valuable asset after their people) outside of the enterprise – no matter how secure the site. What a PR disaster it would be if their customer data records were ever compromised.

As this orthodoxy has been shattered, pundits are left reflecting on what exactly was the tipping point? Was it improved internet security, broadband availability, increased trust in online systems or a rise in teleworking?

Or did the company simply build a damn good product that was better than traditional CRM systems managed and maintained by the IT department, especially those for SMEs, with much higher price tags?

Did the rise of sensitive data held by online retail, gambling, networking (like LinkedIn) and dating sites also lower tolerance thresholds?

And if such an entrenched orthodoxy can smash like a glass beaker on a marble floor….what’s next?

My take? The tipping point I think happened long before Salesforce.com came. It happened when people began using web-based email systems to store sensitive (business and private) information. It began when people started using websites like eBay and Amazon, or B2B exchanges and marketplaces to transact and share credit card information online.

Using web-based (oops the term is now cloud-based) services was I think just a small step from what people were already doing anyway.

What’s next? Perhaps the idea of having all of our services and data residing in the “cloud” and the death of personal or enterprise computing as we know it today may not be far off. Perhaps a “utility” based computing model makes sense after all.

Filed under: Business, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Internet, Web 2.0 , Cloud Computing, crm, saas, utility

Top 5 Low Cost SaaS CRM Alternatives for Small and Midsized Busineses

In continuation of my last post, I want to tackle this time low cost CRM packages or services for small and mid-sized business looking to implement CRM in their organization. In this post I will focus on five CRM SaaS Vendors:

1. Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com is an acknowledged pioneer in Software-as-a-Service applications and market leader in CRM. When you sign up for the service you can choose from different editions–ie Personal, Group, Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited. The system itself is broken down into several applications:
   Sales, Service & Support, Partner Relationship Management,
   Marketing, Content, Ideas and Analytics. Updates are done acording to seasons of the year–so they have a Winter release, Spring release and so on. Pros: Large user base; stable company; long term viability; mature infrastructure and feature set; rich ecosystem of third party apps to extend functionality; highly configurable and extensible platform called Force.com. Cons: Purely online service; lock in a real danger; the really nice features are only available in the high end editions; expensive for large deployments.
2. Rightnow. RightNow’s suite of applications includes multi-channel Service, Sales,
   Marketing, Customer Feedback Management, Voice Automation, and
   Analytics. Rightnow started off as a traditional on-premise CRM  vendor but now seems to focus on On-Demand. Pros: Really strong in customer service; rich feature set in customer service type applications and workflows; close partnerships with telephony vendors make it a good choice for a contact center. Cons: Premium pricing; can be expensive over time; not much third party support developing on the platform.
3. ZohoCRM. Zoho CRM is a new entrant to the SaaS CRM market and is gaining a lot of interest I believe because of its low cost, and its relationship and integration with the Zoho suite of online SaaS applications. Its feature set seems to be primarily focused on sales force automation (like Salesforce a few releases back) and has some basic features to extend and customize its features and functionality. Updates like many of the Zoho applications are frequent. Pros: low cost; integration with Zoho apps; unique features such as online spreadsheet integration; good choice as an entry level solution. Cons: little or no extensions or 3rd party support, basic APIs, functionality geared towards small teams.
4. LongJump CRM. Technically speaking LongJump positions itself as an application platform when it started out which can easily be configured for CRM (this is the opposite of Salesforce.com which started out focused on CRM and is now repositioning as a platform provider, or Zoho which is more of a suite of different apps than an integrated platform). Longjump is easily extensible and configurable, and templates exist to reconfigure the application into something else. Overall a promising vendor although not as well known. Pros: Highly extensible and configurable; integrated platform. Cons: Seems to have a low customer base, small company, not as well known as other competitors, purely online service; lock in a real danger.
5. Netsuite. Netsuite originally was focused on hosted ERP but has now reached a point where they now offer a comprehensive CRM solution as well. Everything is intergated together and offered as a suite, and on top of CRM you have a mature ERP product as well as modules for SCM, E-commerce, PRM, Analytics and others. Pros: mature product; wide breadth of features and functionality; complete beyond CRM. Cons: Expensive, purely online; vendor lock in a danger; limited third party extensions.

Next time I’l try to post CRM solutions from open source vendors. If I missed anything let me know!

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software , crm, saas, small business, vendors

Open Source Vendor SugarCRM Embraces Cloud Computing in a Big Way

Open source CRM vendor SugarCRM is one of a few companies to embrace open source and cloud computing in a big way. When SugarCRM first came out, they immediately offered to provide the software as a service online–similar to Salesforce.com, with the important distinction that you can choose to download and host the software yourself if you want. Larger organizations who want to roll their own hosted software service for customers can opt to use a special package called the SugarCRM Data Center Edition.

Just recently SugarCRM launched a new way to meld Internet services and open source software by launching Cloud Services and Social Feeds. These new Cloud Connectors for SugarCRM allow for company and contact data residing in other cloud environments to be called and presented in SugarCRM. These services include such sites as LinkedIn, ZoomInfo and Crunchbase. The Sugar Feeds feature on the other hand provides a Facebook-like rolling set of notices and alerts based on activity within SugarCRM.

SugarCRM is interesting to watch because of the pace of innovation they bring to open source and how they unabashedly marry commercial interests with the altruistic motivations often-associated (rightly or wrongly)  with open source. From the looks of things they seem to be succeeding.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Open Source , crm, Open Source, sugarcrm, vendors

A new way to work with Zoho | FastCompany.TV

Interview with Raju Vegesna, evangelist for Zoho–a suite of online services for collaboration, productivity and workflow software. Interesting points: Zoho’s breadth of services make them a good starting point for anyone who wants to start with cloud computing. Regarding their market positioning–they like to see themselves as “an IKEA and not a Walmart” where you have access to quality products for a good price. They also have an online market place for community contributed applications developed using the Zoho platform. Interesting as well is their Cloud SQL which provides the ability to work with data in Zoho using SQL. Check it out! Interview done by Robert Scoble of Fast Company TV.

more about “A new way to work with Zoho | FastCom…“, posted with vodpod

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Web 2.0 , interviews, saas, zoho

Red Hat and Microsoft Work Together to Have Interoperable Virtualization Platforms–Battlefield in Enterprise Computing is Shifting

Red Hat announced a few days back that they have signed an interoperability agreement with Microsoft. Under the agreement both companies will allow operating systems from one to run on the hypervisors of the other.

redhat.com | The World’s Open Source Leader

“The world of IT today is a mixture of virtualized and non-virtualized environments. Red Hat is looking to help our customers extend more rapidly into virtualized environments, including mixed Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Server environments,” said Mike Evans, vice president, Corporate Development at Red Hat. “Red Hat listened when our customers asked us to provide interoperability between our respective guest and host virtualization solutions. We are excited to announce these agreements today as the result of our collaboration with Microsoft.”

Now from a technical standpoint–this news isn’t much, but it is significant for the enterprise end user and partner channels as this would put the resources of both companies in testing, validation and support for each other’s operating systems when
running on each other’s server virtualization hypervisors. As part of the deal, Microsoft is now a partner in Red Hat’s
virtualization certification program, and Red Hat has joined
Microsoft’s server virtualization validation program.

Clearly this piece of news shows that virtualization technology is now mainstream, and shows customers are putting enough pressure on the big vendors to set aside market place rivalry and philosophical differences to meet their needs. Customers are now running heterogenous or mixed operating system environments. Long term this also shows that the importance of the operating system is becoming less and less, and the battle will move on to the next level up the stack–in Middleware. In Red Hat’s case its Jboss and for Microsoft its .NET (Microsoft supports Novell’s efforts to support .NET in non-Windows environments). Also the battle is now being moved to another front–this time away from the enterprise data center and standardized, big iron machines and into the Internet cloud of commodity, virtualized heterogenous systems.

Welcome to the new world of computing!

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, IT , Cloud Computing, microsoft, red hat, virtualization

Microsoft Launches Bizspark Program in the Philippines, Tries to Stake out Place in the Future of Computing

Microsoft launched locally last Thursday its global Bizspark program. BizSpark is a program for technology startups to get access at little full-featured Microsoft tools and
technologies, plus production licensing for hosted solutions for three years. Only a nominal fee of USD$100 will be payable upon successful completion of the three-year program.

They launched in partnership with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), where the CICT and government will help them identify companies who fit the criteria of operating less than three years and with less than a million dollars in revenues.

It seems particular emphasis will be be given to companies developing hosted solutions or cloud software services in the cloud:

For startups building hosted software, BizSpark includes production
licenses for the application and management servers including Windows
Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Biztalk Server and
Systems Center. Startups will also have the opportunity to be profiled
and promoted on the BizsparkDB, an online startup directory, where
promising startups from around the world can gain market visibility.

This seems to be Microsoft’s response to the growing threat of open source taking over the cloud. In the cloud computing model, customers put their technology infrastructure in the hands of vendors who deliver computing services remotely and virtually through the Internet. This infrastructure is paid for and managed completely by the vendor–requiring them to invest massive amounts of money in hardware and software–such as operating systems, virtualization platforms, databases, network management tools and others. The ability to quickly scape up and integrate with other systems is paramount. Existing vendors, including the big ones such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon have been enthusiastic in their embrace of open source as it dramatically reduces their costs in licensing.

With programs such as BizSpark, I think Microsoft is trying to recapture mindshare it has lost gradually to developers and service providers, who have been embracing open source because of its low barrier to entry and wide support in terms of infrastructure. Case in point is the LAMP (or Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl), Ruby on Rails, or J2EE and PostgreSQL stack. With virtually zero upfront cost and hosting to be had for as little as US$5 a month,and add to that the ability to innovate faster by leveraging communities of like-minded users without limits to what can be done with code, startups have become dedicated consumers of open source as they build their product and their business.  Erstwhile startups and now successful Internet services such as Facebook, Youtube, Digg and Friendster have launched on these platforms. And if by just looking at the the sites in websites such as PinoyWebStartup, or the skills being posted in sites like JobsDB, Jobstreet and in sites like Pinoylancer, or VC-backed local initiatives like Mor.ph Labs and others, it seems local startups have as well.

Personally I doubt if this move will earn them new converts. This could be a boon for companies who are already committed to the Microsoft platform anyway, and will at least dissuade them from using pirated or cracked versions of Microsoft’s products to bootstrap their venture. I think as time goes by, at least in the low end of the market, it is inevitable that they will lose ground to open source. Just as IBM retreated upmarket to large enterprises as they lost ground to PCs from startups using open industry platforms and commodity pricing in hardware several years ago, Microsoft simply can’t compete with the economic and technical value proposition of open source. Why trade in vendor lock-in and a selective,  pay-to-join program for something that is open to all and free?

Filed under: Business, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, IT, Open Source , isv, microsoft, Open Source, startups, var

Defining a Framework for Cloud Computing

David Linthicum of Cloud Computing Journal has a great post on coming up with a framework to define cloud computing models. He posts:

While I’m sure many can debate the components, I see 10 major categories or patterns of cloud computing technology, including:

• Storage-as-a-Service
• Database-as-a-Service
• Information-as-a-Service
• Process-as-a-Service
• Application-as-a-Service
• Platform-as-a-Service
• Integration-as-a-Service
• Security-as-a-Service
• Management/Governance-as-a-Service
• Testing-as-a-Service

Read more from Cloud Computing Journal here.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, IT , Cloud Computing, enterprise, saas