Another difference between the ASP and SaaS approaches is
that most ASP-supported applications were monolithic client-server programs
with simple HTML Web interfaces. Todays modern SaaS solutions, however, are
designed for the Web environment, which improves usability and manageability.
One reason why the SaaS 2.0 model is finding more traction
than the ASAP approach is because ASP vendors rushed their offerings to market
before performance, security, customization and integration issues were solved,
and before many IT organizations were ready to adopt the ASP model. Today, many
of these problems have been solved. Both IT and business users are better
equipped to take advantage of SaaS. IT experience with Web-based and
services-oriented technologies is improving, and business needs such as
compliance legislation are providing the momentum for companies to adopt an
SaaS approach.
How Will
SaaS 2.0 Affect BI?
Business intelligence (BI) vendors are beginning to
recognize the importance of SaaS, and the need for BI capabilities in the SaaS
environment. Several BI vendors, for example, support the Salesforce.com
AppExchange program, which allows customers to develop applications for use
with the Salesforce.com CRM service. SalesForce.com also provides interfaces
for moving data into and out of the CRM environment. These interfaces can be
used to capture Salesforce.com data for an organizations enterprise data
warehouse. Informatica
has a close working relationship with Salesforce.com for providing data
integration services in this area.
Another direction of the business intelligence industry is
for vendors to offer their own SaaS offerings. Business Objects recently
announced Crystalreports.com, which enables customers to post reports to the
site for viewing. Automated e-mail alerts are generated by the service to
inform interested parties when new reports are available. The Business Objects
service is aimed at companies that need to distribute reports to third-parties,
but who dont have the IT resources to develop the infrastructure for managing
and securing report distribution. This approach provides a more secure and more
efficient alternative to using e-mails containing Adobe PDF report files, for
example.
SAS also
recently joined the rush to join the SaaS movement with the release of several
on-demand business intelligence services. These include access to its complete
BI platform, along with supplier relationship management, marketing automation, Veridiem marketing relationship management and anti-money laundering.
Several new business intelligence vendors specializing
specifically in SaaS have appeared in the marketplace. Oco Inc., for
example, offers its Oco Majik service for producing product, sales and customer
analytics. Another example is Host Analytics that provides a Web-based service for
business performance management in budgeting, planning, forecasting and
financial consolidation.
In summary, there is a clear market direction toward the use
of SaaS for providing on-demand application services. This is especially true
in the SMB marketplace. This direction is encouraging BI vendors to join the
SaaS movement by either supplementing application service vendor offerings, or
by producing their own SaaS BI solutions. Regardless, as companies move toward
the use of SaaS, they must carefully evaluate the impact of this on the overall
enterprise business intelligence system.
About the Author:
Colin is the Founder of BI Research. He is well
known for his in-depth knowledge of leading-edge business intelligence and
business integration technologies, and how they can be used to build a smart
and agile business. With more than 35 years of IT experience, he has consulted
for dozens of companies throughout the world and is a frequent speaker at
leading IT events. He is also conference chair for DCI's Portal, Collaboration
and Content Management conference. Colin has written numerous articles on business intelligence and enterprise business integration. Colin has an expert
channel and blog on the B-Eye-Network and can be reached at cwhite@bi-research.com
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