Archive for July, 2007

SaaS/SOA Asiapac report

Published by Ben Kepes on July 26, 2007 in Business, Efficiency, Governance, IT, New Zealand, New business, SaaS and Strategy. 2 Comments

Springboard research have compiled this report into the projected growth for SaaS in the Asia Pacific region.

The report, not unexpectedly, determines that SOA growth will be significant and enumerates some reasons for that growth;

  • Reduced time and cost for service delivery
  • Closer IT-business alignment
  • Ability to dynamically create business processes
  • Flexibility and reliability
  • Optimizing resources
  • Growing support from integrators and developers
  • Aggressive vendor marketing

Naturally it also see some barriers to SOA growth;

  • Lack of awareness and understanding
  • Unsure ROI for providers
  • Legacy systems
  • Lack of SOA professionals

All in all it is an excellent report and should be some comfort for the SaaS businesses already existing, and in the pipeline, in our region.

The executive summary can be read (for free!) here.

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An interesting, if very tongue in cheek, look at carbon trading…

Published by Ben Kepes on July 25, 2007 in Business, Business and the Environment, Society and Strategy. 1 Comment

I’ve always been a little sceptical about carbon trading. I see it as an artificial solution to a problem that really needs major societal change to solve.

At best it’s greenwash and at worst a way for consumers to appease their own guilt, albeit ineffective and artificial.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3_CYdYDDpk[/youtube]

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Thats miSaaSing the point….

Published by Ben Kepes on July 24, 2007 in Business, Design, Governance, IT, New business, SaaS and Strategy. 2 Comments

One of my regularly watched blogs had this post yesterday, looking at the location of the major profit pools for SaaS businesses. The gist of the post was that entrepreneurs and investors should aim to identify the high profit areas of SaaS business and move towards operating in that particular space.

The post had the following diagram to indicate suggested disparate profit centres for SaaS and discussed which of those centres is, and will be, most profitable.

Image

Now my comments here are going to come from a purely theoretical base, but one which should be thought about when implementing a practical business plan.

I contend (and have done often on this blog), that SaaS business should attempt to become integrators and aggregators along all parts of the eco-system. I’m not sure how helpful it is to build an ecosystem diagram like the one above, and then break it down and consider each component a distinct area to be dealt with separately. While openness and organic development are important parts of web 2.0 (witness API’s, facebook apps etc etc), there is a difference between opening ones API to other developers, and turning ones back on entire chunks of the ecosystem.

The model I prefer is where the enterprise intends to cover all the areas of the ecosystem themselves, but at the same time opens things up for other developers to add on, co-develop and organically grow the model. To often I come across SaaS businesses (you know who you are!) that limit themselves to a very small part of their eco-system. This, by definition, is limiting and sub-optimal given the way the space would seem to be developing.

Now this does not negate the validity of businesses that set themselves up as niche players but what I am saying is that when creating the business plan it is vital that an enterprise defines the eco-system within which they operate, and also defines their particular breadth and depth of focus within that eco-system.

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NZ dollar punches through barrier!

Published by Ben Kepes on July 24, 2007 in Business, Economic Development, Manufacturing, New Zealand, Society and Strategy. 1 Comment

The NZ dollar has punched through the psychological USD0.80 barrier.

While the change itself is small - I’d bet that there are a number of Kiwi businesses who told themselves that 80 cents was the barrier beyond which they would make some concrete decisions about their businesses.

I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear some announcements of job losses in the next few weeks. While the dollar will no doubt fall, the psychological barrier is an important milestone and one which people have been watching for ever since the dollar started spiralling up.

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