June 3rd, 2009

Intuit makes two-pronged PaaS and SaaS push

Posted by Phil Wainewright @ 2:41 am

Categories: Ecosystems, Intuit, Marketplaces, Platform as a service

Tags: Software-as-a-service, Intuit Inc., Platform, PaaS, Cloud Computing, Sales Force Management, Sales, Phil Wainewright

Hard on the heels of its $170 million acquisition of SaaS vendor PayCycle (which I hope to post some further commentary on later today), Intuit is also announcing today an extension of its Intuit Partner Platform — a platform-as-a-service offering first launched a year ago — to support third-party development platforms [disclosure: I'm hosting a sponsored webcast later today with Intuit's Alex Barnett about application development in the cloud]. Read further coverage on Techmeme, AccMan, CloudAve.

The significant element of Intuit’s PaaS announcement is that it is a land-grab to capture mindshare among developers on other cloud platforms, who can take their AppEngine, Amazon Web Services or self-hosted applications and make them available using Intuit’s single sign-on, billing and QuickBooks integration infrastructure. Market reach being one of the key attributes developers look for in a new platform, perhaps the most appealing factor is that applications will be showcased within the Intuit Marketplace, with a potential reach to the four-million-strong installed base of QuickBooks accounting software customers and their estimated 25 million employees.

One of the five partners who are live on this new Federated Applications option at launch is Vertical Response, which was one of the first companies to be successful on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange partner directory. The company grew rapidly by piggy-backing on Salesforce.com’s existing market reach, offering an email marketing add-on that was a natural and simple extension to the core sales automation application. Vertical Response played an important role Read the rest of this entry »

January 5th, 2009

Debunking myths about the SaaS partner channel

Posted by Phil Wainewright @ 12:16 pm

Categories: Business models, ERP, Ecosystems, Intacct, Intuit, Microsoft, NetSuite, On-demand, SAP, Software licensing

Tags: Phil Wainewright

There are a couple of widely-held myths about the SaaS partner channel that I saw being debunked in the closing months of 2008. No, neither of them were the hoary old myth that SaaS vendors don’t need partners because they can use the Web to sell direct — the dot-com bust proved that one wrong. Solution providers are still alive and well on the Internet, but to succeed they have to ignore some common preconceptions. Here are two statements I often hear from vendors and other experts when talking about SaaS:

• SaaS vendors need channel partners because customers will only buy business solutions face-to-face
• SaaS partners have to run lean operations because their margins are slimmer

Both of these assertions are just plain wrong — and I have to confess, that’s not something I would have expected until I heard the evidence.

First up is the assertion that SaaS business solutions have to be sold face-to-face. I heard this point made very firmly by SAP last year talking about its experiences with its Business ByDesign offering. It had originally hoped this would be bought self-service via the Web, but later found it required at least a day’s face-to-face requirements discovery. This led SAP to conclude that it would have to rely on partners with specialist vertical expertise or existing local trust relationships. It seemed a logical conclusion, knowing that another SaaS business suite vendor, NetSuite, operates a network of regional sales offices precisely so that it can be close to its customers.

But then in November I moderated a solution provider discussion at the SIIA OnDemand conference in San Jose, in which four solution providers who work with, respectively, Intacct, Intuit, NetSuite and Microsoft, spoke from their own extensive experience. There’s a very good video of the complete session online now. The most surprising insight of this very informative panel discussion was that SaaS solution providers are getting smart at using the Web to sell, close and deliver solutions remotely — often without any face-to-face contact at all. What this tells us Read the rest of this entry »

July 15th, 2008

Fear and enterprise in the PaaS channel

Posted by Phil Wainewright @ 2:20 am

Categories: CRM, Ecosystems, Intuit, Platform as a service

Tags: Software-as-a-service, Intuit Inc., PaaS, Intuit QuickBooks, Synergration, Software As A Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Emerging Technologies, Phil Wainewright

Traditional solution providers are understandably nervous about the potential impact on their business of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and its close relative platform-as-a-service (PaaS). For some — especially those who now face competition from Microsoft’s own hosted Exchange and Sharepoint offerings — these developments seem like threats to their very existence. But most prefer to see them as opportunities, and are actively exploring how they can embrace SaaS before others do.

One such example is Synergration, a seven-year-old company based in the Philadelphia area, which specializes in developing and marketing applications that integrate with Intuit QuickBooks accounting software. An early member of Intuit’s developer network, the company has a sizeable installed base among QuickBooks users but recently decided the time was ripe to introduce a hosted offering that would integrate with QuickBooks data. As luck would have it, Intuit shortly afterwards introduced the QuickBase Developer Program, which provides development tools and an application infrastructure based on Intuit’s hosted database platform. It also includes integration to QuickBooks data stored on local client machines.

This platform-as-a-service offering allows Synergration to bring a SaaS offering to market without having to build and maintain its own hosted infrastructure, said Synergration’s president, Tom Crawford, when we spoke about the project last month. “It gives an easy way to get into SaaS so that we get this recurring revenue stream,” he told me.

As a result, Synergration is now gearing up for a wholesale shift from its historical licensed software business to a SaaS model:

“I see it being a mainline focus not only for our development but also a big chunk of our revenue stream,” said Crawford. “Up until six months ago, all our development and sales efforts focused on our desktop product set. We see this as a transition stage for our company to move towards a SaaS organization.”

Synergration’s new contact management and prospecting application is designed to appeal to QuickBooks users who want to add these capabilities to work alongside the financials package. Delivering this as a SaaS package may ruffle a few feathers Read the rest of this entry »

April 28th, 2008

Intuit enters the PaaS wars

Posted by Phil Wainewright @ 6:07 am

Categories: Development, Ecosystems, Intuit, Platform as a service, Salesforce.com

Tags: Developer, Intuit Inc., Intuit QuickBase, PaaS, Intuit QuickBooks, Salesforce.com AppExchange, Sales Force Management, Sales, Phil Wainewright

The key to the success of a platform is establishing a virtuous circle of eager customers and willing developers. The technology is just the starting point. You need enough customers to create a market for the add-ons and applications developers create. It’s even more important to get developers enthused about developing for the platform so that when customers come looking for third-party add-ons and applications, the cupboard won’t be bare. For the past few years, we’ve watched as Salesforce.com slowly built out its AppExchange partner base, while hearing WebEx promise to do the same with its Connect ecosystem, but without so far delivering a production version [disclosure: both companies are clients]. At times, it’s been like watching paint dry.

In recent weeks, there’s been a sudden blaze of competition in the PaaS wars. Google has brought its developer ecosystem into the game, with both the launch of the (currently consumer-focused App Engine) and the unveiling of its enterprise-focused Solutions Marketplace. Smaller players are bubbling up too, including Coghead with the launch of its application Gallery and Bungee Labs [also see disclosure].

But all these efforts are overshadowed by Intuit’s launch of its QuickBase Developer Program. QuickBase, which I previously covered in February, is an on-demand database development platform with a pedigree that goes back almost ten years, but it’s only in the past year or two that Intuit has really started investing in the platform. The developer program, announced just in time for last week’s Web 2.0 Expo, is backed up by some serious technology assets, including a new Flex-based user interface, support for the Eclipse development environment and a ready-built connection to financial data stored in QuickBooks. It’s also been framed as a cloud service, offering utility pricing for developers, as well as a complete billing system that allows them to set their own customer pricing and manage the customer relationship — functionality that I’ve frequently criticized AppExchange for lacking.

What’s most impressive, though, is Intuit’s ready-made partner base of 75,000 QuickBooks developers, all of them not only experienced Read the rest of this entry »

February 5th, 2008

QuickBase, your enterprise database in the cloud

Posted by Phil Wainewright @ 7:20 am

Categories: Collaboration, Development, Intuit, Web 2.0

Tags: Intuit Inc., Intuit QuickBase, Database, Blog, Team Management, Productivity, Web 2.0, Blogging, Storage, Management

The shared database is one of the most versatile forms of situational software — that is, software that’s built to suit the ad-hoc needs of a small team, department or community. I have a feeling it’s also by far the most frequently deployed form of Web 2.0 collaborative application in the enterprise, even though mashups and wikis attract more buzz — Wikipedia’s definition of situational applications, for example, talks about wikis and mashups but doesn’t even mention database platforms. That may be enough to please the Web 2.0 crowd but it barely scratches the surface of what’s actually being delivered from the cloud today for serious business purposes.

Perhaps the crowd isn’t getting fired up about shared database platforms because these have been around for such a long time. That may also explain why they are getting established in the enterprise. I’m not talking so much about recent Web 2.0 arrivals such as Dabble DB, Rollbase and Amazon SimpleDB — they’re all serious contenders but Dabble DB is the only one out of beta at this time. I’m thinking of platforms that got started during the previous bubble of Web innovation, back in 1998-99, and have survived to the present day. Platforms such as DataWeb and the one that prompted me to write this up, Intuit’s QuickBase.

Intuit is certainly planning to get the crowd to take notice, with the launch this week of The App Gap. This new blog community site is from the same editorial stable as the enterprise 2.0-focused FastForward Blog (which is sponsored by Microsoft acquisition target and enterprise search vendor Fast). The Corante team have done a great job with FastForward and it will be interesting to see if they can repeat the trick with QuickBase-sponsored The App Gap, which will focus on “the future of work and how new tools are addressing age-old challenges of organization, collaboration, and creation.” They might even make people think enterprise software is sexy. A webinar on The Future of Work to mark the launch takes place this Friday.

The new blog is a sign that Intuit is serious about promoting QuickBase, but it wasn’t always so: the story of how QuickBase became a strategic priority is an interesting one. Intuit itself didn’t realize how much ground QuickBase was gaining with larger enterprises until Read the rest of this entry »