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Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Intuit and Cloud Computing Revolution

How are they responding? - a reference guide
By Peter Laird
Article Rating:
July 18, 2008 10:30 AM EDT
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 7,673
Peter Laird's Enterprise Software Blog

This is a reference guide to what each of the major software vendors are doing in the SaaS space. I won't be sensational and predict the demise of any of these vendors. I think it's far too early to tell how the future will pan out. I can say subjectively that I am impressed with Larry Ellison's pioneering efforts in the space. I can also say that SAP is currently the media whipping boy in the space, with delays in their Business ByDesign program costing them credibility. But this revolution is far from done, so let's not waste time trying to speculate the distant future.

Note: I am now an employee of Oracle, via the BEA acquisition

Oracle

Strategy

Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, has be talking about on demand software for a long time (10 years I believe), so it is clearly on his radar. In fact, he was an investor in both SalesForce and Netsuite, showing his belief in the business. Charles Phillips, Oracle President, has also spoken to the topic.

Larry and Charles Phillips have articulated a strategy on how Oracle can deliver SaaS and retain its focus on its core market (large enterprise). Larry does not intend to make a major push into the lower end of the SMB market.

Current SaaS Initiatives:

Oracle supports the following SaaS initiatives:

Weaknesses

Critics have primarily focused on the lack of end-to-end multitenancy in the On Demand business. The argument is that Oracle will not be able to provide a cost efficient solution unless the entire stack is multi-tenant.

Further reading:

Microsoft

Strategy

At an architectural level, Microsoft is promoting an S+S model, instead of a pure SaaS model. S+S stands for Software+Services. The idea with this is that Software as a Service is most useful when pared with local software (like Office). Microsoft obviously has a major incentive to make sure desktop software is not left behind in the SaaS world, so this makes for good strategy. Whether consumers will buy into it is another matter. See the weaknesses section below for more on this topic.

Current SaaS Initiatives

The following is a selection of  the SaaS offerings from MSFT:

  • SaaS On-Ramp Program - aids ISVs in building out SaaS solutions
  • Microsoft Online Services - its businesss applications ondemand offering
    • Hosted versions of Exchange, Sharepoint, and LiveMeeting
    • Dynamics CRM Live - hosted version of the Dynamics CRM offering
  • Windows Live - a family of hosted offerings for the small business/consumer
    • Live Mesh - touted as a SaaS solution, it currently is just a file synchronization service
    • Messenger (IM), Windows Live ID, Virtual Earth, Search, Spaces (blogs), and Gadgets
  • Architect Center - provides architectural guidance for ISVs
    • Lead by Gianpaolo Carraro and Fred Chong
    • Have produced a SaaS reference application, LitwareHR
    • While some of what they write is MSFT centric, most of the articles are generally applicable
    • As an architect myself, I admire the work that they do

There are more services listed here, but not all are really SaaS.

Weaknesses

Critics contend that Microsoft will struggle to succeed in the SaaS market while preserving its existing franchises. It already stumbled with its business model when a European partner began offering Office as a service:

Its Office franchise is already being eroded by service based offerings (Google Apps, Zoho, Adobe, etc). Somehow it has to prevent Office revenue from being decimated by pure SaaS players.

See next page for IBM, SAP & Intuit 

Published July 18, 2008 – Reads 7,673
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Peter Laird

Peter Laird is the managing architect for the Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Portal products at Oracle. He comes to Oracle via the BEA acquisition, where he served in various engineering roles on WebLogic Portal for 8 years.

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Most Recent Comments
Brian 07/10/08 06:54:02 PM EDT

This is a comprehensive post that pulls together a tremendous amount of information. It is interesting to note that the majority of the movement in SaaS continues to be by companies that are focused on either the front or back office. There is precious little being said/done by the major players in the infrastructure and operations management categories (e.g. HP, BMC, CA, and IBM as you point out). It appears that the greatest opportunity for massive market disruption will come from companies delivering SaaS offerings here. Businesses have been hurt by massive enterprise software implementation failures and are generally fatigued by the lack of innovation that is taking place by the traditional vendors.

Brian de Haaff,
Paglo