THINK IT Services

One of the most vexing challenges facing today’s IT and business decision-makers is how to integrate critical corporate data across a widening array of on-premise and on-demand systems and applications.

Many believe that the age-old data integration issues of the past have only been compounded by today’s rapidly expanding assortment of Cloud-based solutions which raise the expectation of easy end-user access from anywhere at any time.

While there are a growing number of application program interfaces (APIs), Web-based connectors and Cloud-oriented systems integrators that are reducing the difficulty of overcoming this integration issue, it still represents an important impediment that many organizations are reluctant to face.

Intuit announced a new program yesterday aimed at addressing the data integration issue. The Intuit Anywhere program promises to give software developers a new method of extracting QuickBooks data directly into their third-party applications, including web and mobile.

This new data export and integration capability is an extension of the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP). It utilizes a set of widgets and data services to permit customers to more easily take their data generated within QuickBooks and import it into the other Intuit-ecosystem apps which help them run their businesses.

In conjunction with its unveiling of the beta program which is aimed at testing and fine-tuning the Intuit Anywhere capability, the company also announced six new IPP partners that will be participating in the beta program:

• Bill.com 
• Concur 
• eBay 
• FreshBooks 
• Mavenlink 
• MethodCRM.com

Intuit has recently been more actively promoting the scale of its Cloud business, power of its platform, and reach of its alliance partners in the market, including Microsoft and Salesforce.com.

The new Intuit Anywhere program promises to make the data captured in its Quickbooks flagship product more ubiquitous which should strengthen Intuit’s position in the market.

The recent flurry of major vendor announcements regarding their new Cloud Computing initiatives, latest acquisitions and offerings clearly shows that the “Cloud Rush” is in high gear.

Here’s a quick list of the announcements which have caught my attention over the past few weeks in chronological order since HP unveiled its Cloud ‘vision’ last month, and my views regarding their significance,

• Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire newScale, 03/29/11  – Cisco Systems has been pushing into the ‘new data center’ environment for a while with its Unified Computing solutions. It acquired newScale to improve its provisioning capabilities to make it a more viable Cloud vendor for enterprise customers and service provider partners.
• Salesforce.com to Acquire Radian6, 03/30/11  - Now that Salesforce.com has succeeded in popularizing its Chatter social networking capabilities, it wants to give its customers the necessary tools to monitor, manage and measure the effectiveness of these new features.
• Intuit, Salesforce.com Announce Strategic Alliance, 04/01/11  -  Despite its investment in FinancialForce.com and support of numerous integration tools vendors that link salesforce.com’s CRM solution with QuickBooks, salesforce.com is seeking to strengthen its position in the SMB/SME market by building a closer working relationship with Intuit which is also working with Microsoft. Intuit is also trying to reinforce its position within the SaaS/Cloud ecosystem.
• SugarCRM Acquires iExtensions, the Market-Leading CRM for Lotus Notes, 04/05/11  – SugarCRM’s growth is further proof of the growing acceptance of Open Source solutions in the market. Its acquisition of iExtensions strengthens its ties with Lotus Notes which is a pivotal part of IBM’s SaaS/Cloud efforts. And, its growing relationship with IBM illustrates how SugarCRM hopes will gain an even greater foothold in mainstream businesses. Don’t be surprised if this alliance evolves into an acquisition in the months to come.
• SITA Launches Dedicated Air Transport Industry (ATI) Cloud, 04/06/11  – I’ve been saying for the past year that the SaaS/Cloud market is entering a third stage in its evolution, moving from broadly focused horizontal business and IT management apps to a new generation of industry-specific SaaS/Cloud solutions. This new stage is a clear indication that the SaaS/Cloud movement is gaining acceptance across nearly every industry and is now viewed as an important mechanism for reengineering the fundamental business processes within various sectors. SITA has been supporting the operating needs of the airline industry since 1949, and is among the latest industry-specific providers to launch a strategic initiative aimed at Cloud Computing.
• IBM Joins Forces With Over 45 Organizations to Launch Cloud Standards Customer Council for Open Cloud Computing, 04/07/11  - IBM has been aggressively pursuing Cloud opportunities since the concept first gained attention. It made an initial effort to spearhead the Cloud standards process which caused a lot of controversy because many people were suscipious of IBM’s motives at the time. Today’s announcement will generate a more positive response because it is supported by an impressive cross-section of enterprise organizations and Cloud vendors. It also recognizes and endorses the existing Cloud inititives of various standards bodies, the most recent of which was announced by the IEEE on Monday. IBM also rolled out another wave of Cloud products and services today that further expands its portfolio of hardware, software and service offerings, and puts additional pressure on its competitors.
• Dell Invests $1 Billion in Technology Solutions and Services to Help Customers Drive Business Results Today and in the Future, 04/07/11  – Dell is not about to let IBM, HP or Oracle outpace its own Cloud initiatives. The company tried to demonstrate today the magnitude of its efforts to develop and deliver Cloud solutions and services aimed at enterprises and end-users. Dell can tell a good Cloud story because of its long history of delivering automated systems and offering Ecommerce services. It has also done a surprisingly good job leveraging its Perot Systems professional services and systems integration services to create vertical market solutions. Click here to read my initial vision of Dell’s Cloud capabilities two years ago.

These announcements and initiatives illustrate the significance of the Cloud Computing phenomenon. They also show the scalability of the market opportunities, extending from SMBs/SMEs to major industries. And, they demonstrate how the Cloud is fundamentally changing the competitive landscape and customer expectations.

Mark Hurd’s sudden resignation as HP’s CEO has opened a floodgate of speculation regarding who the company will select to succeed him.

Because his departure wasn’t anticipated, there are no clear-cut internal candidates. And, because Hurd himself was a surprise selection for the post in 2006, it is possible that another little-known industry executive may be tapped again for the position this time around.

So, this creates a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a passing interest in HP’s future, and the future of the technology industry as a whole, to throw a few names in the hat.

The HP CEO position is particularly intriguing in part because it has grown to become the largest IT vendor in the industry through a series of acquisitions of Compaq, EDS and others. More importantly, HP like the rest of the IT industry is at a pivotal crossroads brought on by the disruptive forces surrounding cloud computing, globalization, the consumerization of IT, mobility and the economy.

As a consequence, HP and every other established technology (and software) company has to re-think their corporate strategies, redesign their products and services, and restructure their go-to-market tactics.

For HP, this means realigning its hardware, software and service capabilities to more effectively leverage the ‘cloud’ so it can more effectively responding to customers’ rapidly changing requirements and expectations, and compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

I was first prompted to think about potential HP CEO candidates immediately after Hurd’s resignation when I was asked by a top-flight headhunter for my quick suggestions and came up with the following names off the top of my head:

• Joe Tucci, EMC’s CEO who has transformed the company from a hardware-centric to a software-driven business model and pulled off a similar feat at Wang Computer where he moved the company from hardware to services. EMC and HP’s corporate capabilities and challenges have many similarities.
• John Chambers, Cisco Systems’ CEO who has successfully transformed the company from a corporate network infrastructure vendor into a multidimensional technology supplier to everyone from major service providers to small office/home office (SOHO) workers. Under Chambers’ leadership, Cisco has withstood every economic and competitive challenge, and is now moving into the data center where HP has made much of its living.
• Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s CEO who has transformed the software industry by leading the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) charge and evangelizing about the added business benefits of moving to a broader array of cloud computing alternatives. If Salesforce.com isn’t going to be acquired by Oracle and Benioff made CEO under Larry Ellison, he would be a great candidate to push HP’s legacy software business into the new world of SaaS and its hardware business into the cloud.
• Steve Mills, IBM’s Software Czar, who has used an aggressive acquisition strategy to recast the company into a powerful middleware vendor within a similar set of hardware, software and service businesses which HP possesses. As a result of his success with the software division, Mills was recently given responsibility for managing IBM’s IBM hardware, storage, and operating systems businesses. But, Mills is also facing a mandatory retirement barrier to further advancement and could put his experience to good use at HP.

My friends, Chris Hoffmann and Scott Donahue at TripleTree, where I am a senior advisor, suggested that we put our heads together to broaden the candidate list. Here’s what we came up with:

• Michael Capellas- He has successfully stepped into even tougher situations at Compaq (now part of HP) and MCI/Worldcom, and is well respected in the tech industry and beyond.
• Bill Campbell - Current Intuit Chairman and former CEO, but more importantly he has been a key advisor at Google and Apple, and is also very well respected in the tech industry.
• Kevin Johnson- Former rising star at Microsoft now running Juniper Networks who understands HP’s products and channels.
• Anne Livermore- Runs HP’s Enterprise unit which brings together its hardware, software and services businesses. He’s been passed over many times but might be the safest best as an inside pick.
• John Thompson- Former CEO, and current Chairman of Symantec, recognized the importance of moving to SaaS but couldn’t overcome channel resistance.
• Meg Whitman - If the Governor thing fizzles…she’s a proven, capable leader who will be looking to prove herself again.
• Ray Lane- Ran Oracle as President, then became an early proponent of the virtues of SaaS as a top-tier VC.
• Charles Philips- Has been driving Oracle’s acquisition strategy and runnng a major portion of its operations. He’s just beginning to learn about the hardware business as a result of the Sun acquisition, but he’s a quick study and forward-minded.
• Jon Rubinstein - Ex-Palm, Ex-Apple…might be too much of an engineer but interesting match for HP. Understand mobility which is where the world is heading, and can help HP fully exploit its Palm acquisition.
• Ed Whitacre- Just announced his resignation from GM where he quicklygot the behemoth back on track with no prior industry experience. Before that, he also pulled together SBC and AT&T, and could bring HP’s far-reaching assets together. He’s in his early 60’s, so it might be a stretch to see him as a long-term CEO at HP. However, he could bring stability until HP cultivates a new leader for the longhaul.   
• Diane Greene- Former CEO of VMware revolutionized IT with virtualization, a key component in HP’s future. Might be too techie, but certainly understands the opportunities and challenges.
• Shantanu Narayen - Well respected, but not well known CEO of Adobe which is a key player in the web development world which is driving cloud services.
• Vivek Paul- CEO of Wipro, known as a visionary in outsourcing, now in private equity, with the global experience which will be essential going forward.

If these industry stalwarts seem too mundane, here are a few frivolous ideas to think about for fun:

• Brett Favre – nominated by my Minneapolis-based friends at TripleTree who worship the indecisive quarterback as a brilliant turnaround artist.
• Joe Montana – my football oriented alternative because of better winning record and Bay Area roots.
• Simon Cowell – he is a tough-minded task-master with time on his hands since he left American Idol.
• Oprah Winfrey – knows how to build businesses and a worldwide following, and might be willing to put aside her upcoming year of long goodbyes as she departs her syndicated talk show.
• Tony Blair- the consummate negotiator who would be a perfect candidate to address the myriad of channel issues which will arise if HP adopts an aggressive SaaS/cloud computing strategy.

As you can see, Mark Hurd’s resignation has given us a great way to while away the dog-days of August with various ideas. I hope this gives you plenty of food for thought for the weekend and welcome your suggestions as well.

Intuit’s major outage last week served as a harsh, yet valuable reminder for all of us about the serious risks which underlie our growing dependence on third-party, ‘cloud’-based services.

The irony about the timing of Intuit’s service failure is that the company has been escalating its marketing efforts to position it as a leading provider of cloud services. For instance, Intuit’s SVP/CTO, Tayloe Stansbury, was a keynote presenter at last month’s SIIA All About the Cloud Conference in San Francisco where he boasted about Intuit surpassing $1 billion in cloud-based service revenues.

The company’s CEO, Brad Smith, did a good job quickly apologizing to Intuit’s over 300,000 customers who were affected by the outage. His blogpost also explained the cause of the disruption and made a public commitment to put new policies and procedures in place to prevent the problem from occurring again.

Smith’s response was certainly better than that of BP’s CEO, who has succeeded in alienating public officials as well as the public at large with his arrogant actions and unconvincing statements.

In order to counteract any potential backlash as a result of this incident that could derail the rapid growth of the market, the cloud computing industry needs to take a number of immediate steps to reduce the likelihood of similar events and alleviate the impact on customers.

As a strategy and marketing guy, I’m not qualified to recommend specific technical steps which Intuit and other cloud vendors should take to mitigate the risks of software or system failures and safeguard against manual process mistakes.

Instead, I will suggest some simple measures which vendors must take to reduce the occurrence and repercussions of these incidents:

• Invest in redundant systems even if it adds operating costs. Smart customers are willing to pay more if they are convinced they will be safer.
• Train and certify employees as meeting industry standards. Smart customers will select vendors who boast skilled employees and have the certifications to show for it.
• Act fast to notify customers when something goes wrong and keep them informed of your efforts to resolve the problem. Customers understand that ’stuff’ happens and appreciate vendors who are proactive in responding to an issue and communicate about the status.
• Ask for customer feedback and suggestions. Customers are loyal to vendors who seek and respond to their input.
• Create public notification systems and performance scorecards.Salesforce.com has pioneered this idea with its trust.salesforce.com website which provides real-time reporting of its service availability. Customers love transparency.
• Develop Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with teeth. Customers want contractual agreements which clearly state the provider obligations, outline their escalation policies to remedy issues, offer meaningful penalties, and prescribe grounds for termination.

Although a strong argument can still be made that this type of outage is rare and most cloud computing providers are far more reliable (and secure) than the majority of enterprises, this latest incident makes it imperative that the cloud computing industry quickly develop off-line solutions which augment their online services to enable their customers to continue to operate even during a service outage.

I’ve been advocating for more than a year about a new definition of location independence which permits customers to take advantage of off-line, on-premise SaaS alternatives such as appliances and applets. 

These on-premise platforms and tools are becoming increasingly feasible from a functional and economic standpoint as the technology, service delivery methodology and business models mature. They also are in keeping with the growing interest among corporate decision-makers in private or internal cloud options.

While the idea of private or internal clouds undercuts some of the potential economic and operational benefits of the cloud computing ideal, it is still a step in the right direction and can alleviate the angst many business executives and IT folks  have about the current state of the cloud, especially in light of Intuit’s latest problems.

This week’s announcement that Microsoft and Intuit are linking their respective Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities has attracted lots of attention and generated plenty of speculation. It is also the latest escalation of the PaaS wars I predicted would take center-stage this year.

Although Salesforce.com’s Force.com PaaS has gained the lion’s share of industry attention because of the company’s unparalleled marketing machine, I’ve felt that Intuit’s Partner Platform (IPP) represented a dark-horse in the PaaS race because of the vast installed base of small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) using Intuit’s QuickBooks and QuickBase, along with its powerful channel relationships.

I’ve also believed that Microsoft would make considerable progress in penetrating the cloud computing market this year, not because of the technical capabilities of its Azure PaaS, but because of its historical prowess in building a vast partner network of ISVs and developers.

With those thoughts in mind, here’s my take on the strategic business implications of this alliance,

1. Both companies are aggressively attempting to catch up to Salesforce.com’s Force.com PaaS initiatives both in terms of mindshare and marketshare. Both companies want to quickly expand their reach into the ISV/developer community to strengthen their competitive position in the PaaS market. (Disclosure: I’ve written a series of whitepapers on behalf of Salesforce.com regarding the Force.com capabilities.)
2. Both companies also want to demonstrate the ‘openness’ of their PaaS capabilities to offset the alliances which Salesforce.com has made with Amazon, Google and Facebook, and capitalize on accusations that Salesforce.com’s Force.com PaaS is limited because it is built on a ‘proprietary’ language.
3. Gaining greater market penetration via access to the other party’s installed base of customers and partners is a given, but capitalizing on their respective functional capabilities and channel relationships is important.
4. Intuit is primarily seeking to make its IPP more attractive to developers by expanding the functionality it can provide its PaaS users. Adding Microsoft’s development and collaboration tools, including the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) which consists of SharePoint Online, Communications Online, Exchange Online, and Office Live Meeting gives developers greater functional capabilities to satisfy their customers’ needs.
5. Microsoft is primarily interested in adding the service management capabilities embedded in Intuit’s Partner Platform (IPP) which include service provisioning and monitoring, along with pay-as-you-go billing and pricing. Adding these capabilities makes Azure more relevant to developers from a business perspective.

While this alliance is squarely focused on small businesses, it could also appeal to the regional offices or small divisions of larger enterprises. It could also attract crossover opportunities in the consumer market, especially when you consider the growing influence of consumerization in the corporate world.

But, most importantly it could open new opportunities within traditional channels and create new channel opportunities for cloud services and vendors. Salesforce.com, Google, Amazon and Facebook have not made much progress penetrating the channel and will face serious challenges gaining the trust and confidence of traditional channel organizations who feel threatened by the cloud computing phenomenon. Intuit and Microsoft can leverage their established relationships with key channel companies to overcome their concerns.

This alliance is the most recent in Microsoft’s escalating efforts to regain its dominant position in the software market which has been quickly slipping away with the accelerated growth of SaaS and broader cloud computing services. Microsoft also announced earlier this month that it is teaming with HP in a three-year, $250 million initiative to develop and deliver a new generation of cloud-based solutions.

Conspiracy theorists will also point out that Microsoft announced last June that it is discontinuing its Money software service, which leaves a convenient gap for Intuit to fill with its QuickBooks solutions.

While ‘coopetition’ is not a new idea or business practice in the tech industry, this week’s Microsoft-Intuit alliance is certainly an important new test of the concept. Whether this proves to be a win-win relationship or simply a Machiavellian maneuver by these companies remains to be seen.

It is also important to note that this isn’t a mutually exclusive alliance. Microsoft is already working with Amazon, for instance. In fact, it will probably spark additional discussions and agreements with the other players by both parties.

THINKstrategies announced today that Intuit Quickbase has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Intuit QuickBase allows users to create unique business applications tailored to meet their specific process and industry needs – without technical expertise or coding. Business users can easily build new on-demand business applications from scratch or select from more than 200 available templates to customize.

Click here to read more about case study examples that  illustrate the measurable benefits which customers have gained from Intuit QuickBase.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards program or to apply for an award.

I had the privilege of attending a local forum at Bentley University hosted by Intuit this past week entitled “Startups and the Cloud: Entrepreneurship in the Age of Cloud Computing”. 

The size of the turnout for this event was another indication of the growing level of interest in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the broader cloud computing phenomenon. It may also be an early indicator of the potential power of Intuit as a key player in this rapidly evolving marketplace.

In a previous blog post, I suggested that two of the most important competitive advantages which leading Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) must display are,

• Sustainability in today’s tough economic climate to ensure they are viewed as solid, long-term suppliers of SaaS development and delivery capabilities.
• An attractive customer base which can make the PaaS vendor a viable channel to market for developers leveraging its toolkit.

Intuit easily qualifies as a potentially powerful PaaS candidate based on both of these criteria. It is a solid software vendor that has built an enormously strong base of small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs), as well as households who take advantage of its financial management applications.

More than two hundred current and aspiring software developers attended Intuit’s forum this week. They were interested in getting insight about the overall SaaS and cloud computing market from a combination venture capitalists and CEOs, including Scott Cook of Intuit who provided his perspectives about building a successful software business in today’s rapidly changing market. The attendees were also curious about Intuit’s PaaS capabilities.

The organizers took advantage of the opportunity to showcase Intuit’s rapidly evolving development platform which should appeal to many aspiring SaaS/cloud computing developers that wants to deliver B2B solutions aimed at SMBs, or even B2C solutions aimed at households using Intuit products.

Intuit’s recent acquisitions clearly demonstrate its determination to be a major player in the SaaS and cloud computing marketplace. And, the turnout at last week’s event illustrates that there are plenty of entrepreneurs and software developers who are interested in leveraging Intuit’s position in the market.

Of course, Intuit will have to provide these developers with the right tools at the right price to fulfill its potential as a major PaaS player.

Platforms have been proliferating and it is not surprising that there are already signs we may be on the cusp of a shakeout.

Today’s platform players range from start-ups, like Bungee Labs, to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing movement standard-bearers, Salesforce.com and Google with Force.com and Google App Engine respectively.

This has created a somewhat confusing array of players and platform alternatives which have been divided into various segments.

This week’s announcement about Salesforce.com’s new “Service Cloud” illustrates the way SaaS vendors are leveraging platforms to redefine their business in order to extend their market reach and strengthen their position in the marketplace.

SpringCM is heading down this same path with its new platform which enables independent developers and resellers to build applications or more easily integrate to SpringCM’s electronic content management (ECM) capabilities.

Platforms enable these vendors to convert their internal technologies into development and delivery mechanisms which can be resold to third-parties.

In Salesforce.com’s case, this means reselling the development code which underlies its core customer relationship management (CRM) and salesforce automation (SFA) application, along with the service delivery infrastructure which supports it. It also means that it can recast its business to include web hosting and customer service.

In the case of Amazon, it is repackaging and repositioning its vast data centers and eCommerce capabilities into on-demand development and storage facilities, as well as a distribution mechanism.

Vendors can also use a strong customer base as the basis of a platform strategy. For Facebook and MySpace, their vast user populations provide developers a ready-made channel to market.

Intuit is seeking to leverage its vast user base and powerful brand equity to attract third-party developers to its new Partner Platform, formerly the QuickBase Development Environment.

IBM, Oracle and Progress Software are promoting a combination of database systems and middleware capabilities to position themselves as platform players.

Adobe has also become a key player because of the pivotal role of its development tools and growing assortment of applications. Of course, Microsoft is trying to play catch up by promising its own development platform, Azure.

Here’s a quick list of the essential ingredients which a platform player has to have in place in order to win a meaningful share of the market,

• Easy to use, ’standards’ oriented development code
• Reliable and secure development environment
• Automated and flexible procurement capabilities
• Name recognition and brand equity
• Customer base and channels to market
• Developer/Partner network

Put together, these assets can create a powerful competitive advantage.  However, if a platform player can’t offer a combination of these attributes they have little hope of survival.

An example of the rising risks facing the weaker of the players is the recent rumor on VentureWire that Coghead is in talks to sell itself to an unidentified buyer after failing to secure Series C funding.

Software vendors, enterprise developers and IT/business decision-makers will need to take a closer look at the long-term financial viability and other business assets of their platform suppliers, in addition to their technical capabilities.

This raises questions about the future of the Cogheads of the world. But, it also suggests that relatively new entrants in the platform market, like Intuit and Apple, could become strong players.

How many of us saw Amazon being a leading platform player and major force in the SaaS/cloud computing market 2-3 years ago?