Archive for February, 2008
February 27, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
 SAP last September announced the early adopter roll-out of SAP Business ByDesign. Business ByDesign is SAP’s entry in the On Demand Business Applications space and is being marketed to SMB customers with 25 to 500 users.
Business ByDesign will allow SAP to cover the entire gamut of customers sizes and will complement SAP Business Suite, SAP Business All-in-One and SAP Business One.
Business ByDesign will be priced at $149 per month per user with a minimum of 25 licensed users. The monthly subscription pricing is all inclusive and includes infrastructure, product support service and upgrades.
Business process functionality includes financials, CRM, executive management support, financials, human capital management, project management, supplier relationship management, supply chain management, compliance management and integration with Microsoft Office.
Business ByDesign runs Netweaver; a smart move in that SAP partners and customers can access all the SAP Enterprise Repository. Netweaver will also allow SAP partners to extend Business ByDesign by developing vertical industry applications utilizing SOA and technologies such as IBM WebSphere, Java EE and Microsoft.Net.
Just like SAP Business All In One and SAP Business One; Business ByDesign utilizes T-Rex and Max DB, thus eliminating dependence on SQL server, Oracle or DB2 databases.
Business ByDesign is a pure On Demand solution; but is not multi-tenant, unlike Netsuite, Salesforce or the smaller On Demand ERP competitors. Also the early versions on Business ByDesign are a bit short on Enterprise 2.0 features such as Mash-Up support and Web 2.0 User Interface features.
Business ByDesign is expected to have general availability in the first half of 2008 and SAP estimates 1000 customers will be live by mid 2009.
Update 8 May 2008 - Since I posted this review of Business ByDesign there have been a number of announcements relating to the availability date of the product…..
February 19, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
The W3C Semantic Web Group recently standardized its recommendation for the SPARQL Query Language for RDF. RDF is a directed, labeled graph data format for representing information in the Web.
SPARQL (pronounced Sparkle) is a query language for RDF that can be used against diverse data sources, whether the data is stored natively as RDF or viewed as RDF via middleware. SPARQL in many ways opens the door to the true Semantic Web and once fully adopted as the main RDF query language, will accelerate creation of advanced automated data sharing applications.
Ivan Herman recently presented a tutorial entitled “Introduction to the Semantic Web” that gives a great overview of how the Semantic Web works.
February 11, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
Get Satisfaction is accepting applications for the upcoming release of its Beta API. The API is a RESTful API that will allow developers to access most of the functionality that is built into Get Satisfaction while allowing questions to be broadcast out to Social Media such as Facebook or perhaps one day Linked-In.
The API will also support Google OpenSocial and will make Get Satisfaction become the de facto standard (if it is not already) for the coming wave of Social Network Orientated Customer Service applications.
In addition the API could easily be used by Enterprises who are tracking customer satisfaction via Get Satisfaction and could be utilized as a hybrid Web 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 application.
Companies that are active participants on Get Satisfaction today include O’Reilley Media, Oracle, Twitter and Hubdub. (Surprisingly companies like Apple, Porsche and Wordpress do not participate yet.)It will be interesting to revisit in 3 months to see what companies have used the Get Satisfaction API to interface with Salesforce.com for example or their own internal customer service applications…stay tuned.
February 5, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal outlines how some VC firms are slowly beginning to understand the business model of On Demand Software as a Service Companies.
Most VC’s have traditionally concentrated on investing in companies after the seed stage of funding. VC’s normally look for a seat on the board, preferred stock and control of a firms operations in exchange for a multimillion dollar later round investment.
The catch with todays Enterprise 2.0 - Web 2.0 - SaaS companies is that with a dedicated team and a great idea, $500,000 is in most cases plenty to get a beta product introduced via the internet. With OpenSource development tools low cost storage options like Amazon S3 and SaaS delivery models it is much easier in 2008 to develop a software solution than it was 5 years ago.
Also having heard stories of how Facebook and other Web 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 companies were able to get a successful beta product developed without the overbearing presence of a traditional VC firm, many of the current crop of SaaS companies are for the first time NOT considering spending a substantial amount of time and effort seeking VC funding.
Investments in the $100,000 to $500,000 range were until recently the sole province of Angel Investors. But many VC’s; fearing that they will be shut out completely from some of the up and coming Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 companies, have changed tack and now consider the smaller investments worth their time.
These developments bode well for most SaaS entrepreneurs as they will conceiveably have access to additional sources of funding that were until recently not available to their firms.
February 1, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
Microsoft makes 44 billion USD offer for Yahoo
To underscore how market dynamics and perception of companies has changed drastically over the past few years; this acquisition would actually be welcomed by many.
Meanwhile Google misses earning estimates for first time
This is no surprise given the current economic downturn and resultant decrease in online advertising; the key driver in Google’s revenue model. This makes Microsoft’s probable purchase of Yahoo even more important as Google will finally have a competitor who will match it dollar for dollar in R&D spending etc.
Web 2.0 security risks still being ignored
Julian Goldsmith opines in ZDNet Asia that basic security risks are still being ignored by most Web 2.0 companies and users.
Wall Street Journal predicts widespread Web 2.0 adoption in 2008
Despite the lagging economy and security risks, Ben Worthen thinks that 2008 will be a breakout year in terms of Web 2.0 adoption in corporations.
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SAP last September announced the early adopter roll-out of SAP Business ByDesign. Business ByDesign is SAP’s entry in the On Demand Business Applications space and is being marketed to SMB customers with 25 to 500 users.
