Over on Rough Type there is an interesting post about the misunderstanding around what SaaS really is. I posted this as a comment on the site, but thought I would expand it a bit here …

My glib answer to the question is:Take a look at any software package that has salespeople who come on site and requires an organization to have dedicated hardware, software, and personnel in order to function.

HINT: If the software is coded in Java or C++ and requires more than 1 hour and a single intern to deploy then you are on the right track.

Now, think about how the CEO and CFO of that organization wishes that software actually worked and how much it actually cost. If the disconnect is more than 25% of the sticker price or 50% of the functionality then the definition of SaaS is:

a. The combination of back-end processes, front-end display, and data access methods that provide the functionality.

b. An equivalent cultural shift as the move from main- and mid-frames to PC’s in the 1980’s.

c. What that organization will be switching to in the next three years.

I believe that the shift to SaaS will be as large, swift, and ruthless over the next few years, and it will have a sweeping impact on the software industry as we know it. The people I worry about most are the VAR’s, especially those who exist the Windows ecosystem or have any application that requires a complied GUI. The economics are just slipping away from them …

Remember Internet Appliances? I mean products like like Microsoft’s WebTV or Oracle’s NIC? Take a look at this dated rundown of the market or read the press releases about them from Oracle or IBM if you want a good laugh. The IA market failed miserably, ultimately because it couldn’t deliver a significantly better experience than traditional computing, in terms of usability, functionality, or cost. While they did change the market (remember life before the $1000 PC) ultimately they couldn’t bring down costs low enough to compete against either traditional PC’s or embedded systems.

While this is worth discussing just for the schadenfreude, I actually have a reason for talking about this. I was reading a post about running an entire business on SaaS and another switching businesses to a Web 2.0 environment when it hit me like a ton of bricks. Web 2.0 is fulfilling the dream of internet appliances.

A stretch … perhaps. But bear with me. The idea behind IA’s was to provide super simple access to internet services and take away the complications of managing the desktop. Tell me that Google hasn’t taken a quantum leap in that direction with Search, GMail, Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets, and Maps. Tell me that Yahoo hasn’t done the same with Flikr (I don’t use Yahoo much so I don’t know their products as well).

Web 2.0 is effectively turning the computer into an internet appliance where it makes sense, but without sacrificing the advantages of running a fully functioning machine. It is making it possible to actually run a business from the web. This is going to radically change the business environment, at least as much as the transition from the mainframe to the PC. I can’t wait to see how everything will shake out …

Well, I just got into the beta for Amazon’s EC2. I am pretty excited about it, as I have had some ideas about ETL and information quality that might be a nice fit for this architecture. While it isn’t distributed computing per se, it offers some very interesting opportunities around scalability, especially in working with data transformation.

I will try to get someting up and running this weekend. I am going to keep careful notes, and will try to add a step-by-step guide to help others get started. There is ample documentation on the AWS site, but I would like to do my part to make things a bit easier for newbies.

Links

• Getting Started With AWS — A step by step explanation of how to enroll and use the Amazon Web Services.
• Getting Started With S3 — My step by step walkthrough for setting up, connecting to, and using S3.
• Getting Started With EC2 — My step by step walkthrough for EC2.

Also, all of my postings are available in the AWS category, which will be updated regularly.

A little while back, Ingres and rPath announced Project Icebreaker the creation of a software appliance encompassing “the integration of the Ingres 2006 database with the Linux operating system”. In the past, I have always thought of appliances as being hardware related, but recent events have had me reconsidering this narrow definition. Under my old way of thinking I might have dismissed Icebreaker as something of a response to the difficulties of administering and maintaining a Linux system. However, some new developments have me thinking …

An applicance is the complete encapsulation of a business process, freeing the user to step back and look at the bigger picture. For a product like Netezza, this it pretty obvious that it is a complete RDBMS encapsulated in hardware black box. But, as hardware becomes more of a commodity, operating system configuration becomes more complicated, and virtualization becomes widespread, it makes sense that the definition of an appliance could migrate out of silicon.

Consider that Amazon Web Services are working on some very interesting projects, namely namely S3 (online storage) and EC2 (grid for rent). These projects have essentially abstracted the operation and maintenance of processing and storage. Icebreaker sounds ideal for this kind of enivronment. Thinking of the metaphor of the kitchen, it changes the role of the server from appliance to countertop.

OK, OK, this is just a jumble of random thoughts.  I have been trying all week to get these thoughts out and on to paper, pretty unsuccessfully.  The one thing I think I think is that there are some radical changes just over the horizon, based on the trends in web services, appliance-ization, and outsourcing.  Something big, something both familiar and new and unexpected.  I will have to think about this a bit more …