[Update 4/13/2006]: Fixed egregious spelling error. Can someone start proofreading these for me?
Sam Ramji, always insightful, has a post today on what Microsoft should be doing with regards to Software-as-a-Service companies.
He got together with some major players (Intacct, Echopass, Blue Roads, and Newsgator, among others) and had a good discussion about SaaS and how Microsoft can help these companies succeed.
After describing his meeting, Sam has a call to action: he wants to know how Microsoft can provide broad customer reach for SaaS partners, help with sales and marketing, and provide ways for SaaS ISVs and VARs to connect.
Sam, at least one part of the answer is simple: expand the existing Microsoft Partner programs to embrace SaaS. Add a competency specifically for SaaS. Make it available to ISVs (who will be providing SaaS) and AppDevs (who may be called upon to build SaaS applications for their clients). Let your ISVs and AppDevs know about the third party tools available on your platform that can help SaaS developers--the "picks and shovels" that will help people build innovative, scalable software on your platform. You're right: ISVs, AppDevs, and VARs in this space need to be able to connect. Continue to grow and foster the partner programs, and they'll be able to do that.
And, as an aside: keep your Servers and Tools people innovating! If you want people developing SaaS to choose your platform, you've got to make sure that the development tools and server tools that you're producing are hands-down the best in the business.
You are right on with the SaaS partner competency - we're working on adding this to the program and rationalizing it with the ISV and Hosting competencies.
ReplyDeleteMultitenant on-demand architectures appear to be poorly understood in general yet they are at the heart of SaaS pure-plays; and clearly grid systems will need to underlie these infrastructures within telcos and other next-generation hosters/XSPs.
Do you see grids as critical for SaaS ISVs who host their own infrastructure?
What specific improvements to the tools - including frameworks - would you recommend?
Sam - I see grids as critical for many ISVs who offering SaaS. Not everyone will need one, but certainly NLB won't suffice for anyone who is writing software that will be doing more than just serving HTML pages.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the multitenant architectures. We've had inquiries from vendors thinking about building the next-generation hosting facilities you speak of; they're in the process of deciding if the Microsoft family will be as important as the LAMP solutions. We'll continue to sing the praises of the Microsoft platform.
In terms of technical needs, I think Microsoft is doing a good job already. .NET 2.0, WSE 3.0, VS2005: you're giving developers the tools they need.
Fostering SaaS partnerships is a must. Part of the success that the Linux/open source tools have had is in the successful creation of communities.
Microsoft is doing a great job of fostering communities with sites like Channel 9. These communities need to extend higher up in organizations, so just as now a .NET developer can tap another developer for help on technical issues, a CTO of a Microsoft-partner should have the ability to track down the CTO of another Microsoft-partner when they need to put together a solution.