October 1st, 2007
MuleSource gets SaaS
MuleSource has put its Software as a Service play, MuleOnDemand, into beta.
OpSource, a MuleSource customer, will run the infrastructure,
MuleSource CEO Dave Rosenberg told ZDNet Open Source customers will be able to either run a Mule box or get “pure integration in the cloud.” Jim Emerich, formerly of Salesforce.Com, has joined the company to make sure the numbers work.
“We have felt the pain ourselves from not having our applications integrated,” Rosenberg explained. “How do you connect Sugar and Salesforce? If you look at how these applications are built, you’ll find different schemas, different APIs. There’s no standardized API past the protocol level.
“We just decided to solve the problem – we don’t care how you talk to us or who you’re talking to.”
The target market is the Fortunate 2000, Rosenberg said, the big companies which either have a variety of systems or need to connect with vendors and customers who run different software.
“This is a bigger shift with SOA. The need to integrate applications ourside your enterprise is more real. Ignoring the larger technology movement will be a real problem for vendors.”
While the software infrastructure, the open source Mule ESB, is fairly straightforward and bulletproof, the beta will give Mule time to tweak the user interface and build its marketing pitch, Rosenberg said.
“What we’re used to in open source is very low cost marketing. But in on-demand Salesforce spends 70% of their money on sales and marketing. That’s what we’re trying to figure out, how do you continue to use the viral aspects to move into different market segments.”
Rosenberg acknowledged MuleOnDemand may not have a huge head start, both because it’s based on open source and because SaaS is a pretty established market. But he insisted his company’s understanding of enterprise clients will extend its head start.
“The SaaS ecosystem recognizes the challenge but they don’t understand the intricacies of enterprise data systems,” he concluded.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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