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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
Reads:
 4,984

IBM

Strategy

Searching for interviews on SaaS with IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano or VP of Software Steve Mills does not bring up much of interest. This is a bit alarming, remembering the lessons from my previous DEC  post. Of the 5 major software giants covered here, IBM appears to have the least amount of executive mindshare for SaaS.

I am not the only one who sees this: Larry Barrett wrote an entire article analyzing IBM's apparent sluggishness when it comes to SaaS. While I don't see a high level business strategy, IBM has embarked on some SaaS initiatives, covered in the next section.

Current SaaS Initiatives:

IBM has these intiatives:

Weaknesses

As Larry Barrett noted, IBM doesn't appear to be aggressively pursuing the SaaS model. Sure, it has some initiatives going, but for the size of IBM those initiatives seem undersized.

Also, Jeff Nolan has pointed out that IBM lacks the business apps necessary to execute on an effective SaaS strategy.

Further reading:



SAP

Strategy

SAP CEO Henning Kagermann helped launch the major SAP SaaS initiative: Business ByDesign which is a hosted version of several of SAP's traditional heavy weight business applications. The intent was to target SMB, but due to problems in execution that strategy may be changing. It also plans to be a SaaS hybrid, with some on-premise software in the mix.

The bright spot for SAP and SaaS comes from its acquisition of Business Objects (BOBJ). BOBJ was already offering Crystal Reports at the time of the acquisition, and appears to be a healthy business.

Current SaaS Initiatives

SAP has three major initiatives:

Weaknesses

By far the biggest perceived weakness with SAP is its failure to execute on its much publicized SaaS release (BBD). Critics point to the major delays (possibly 24 months) as a sign that SAP's applications are a poor fit for the SaaS model. Worse, SAP validated the concept to its customers but failed to deliver, providing key advantage to competitors like NetSuite.

  • Loraine Lawson: SAP’s SaaS Is Dead. Long Live SAP’s SaaS.
  • Dennis Howlett: SAP Business By Design likely to be delayed

     

    Further reading:

     

    Intuit

    Strategy

    CEO Brad Smith isn't the most vocal about SaaS, but his company is doing the talking for him. Intuit is clearly pushing the SaaS model, with major product offerings already available. The strategy appears to be simple: offer online equivalents of their product suite:

    Current SaaS Initiatives

    Intuit offers the following products as SaaS offerings:

    Weaknesses

    I haven't seen any weaknesses other than stiff competition. The space Intuit plays in will become crowded, with Netsuite and Intacct already delivering SaaS, and Sage likely to become a contender as well.


    [This article appeared originally here and is reproduced in full by the kind permission of the author, who retains copyright.]

    • Published July 18, 2008 – Reads 4,984
    Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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    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