Will corporate America use SaaS components?
I spent the evening debating the value of SaaS components with the guys from Palmtreee the other night.
The main question was “will corporate America embed SaaS components within their infrastructure?”
My argument is “well, it depends!” It depends upon who else is using the component, what the other users think of the component, and the stability of the company providing the component.
Let’s take a scenario. Let’s say I’m tasked with building the next “great Trading Application” at Mega Corp USA. I have a deadline and the pressure is on to get results.
I have several options:
- Build the App from scratch - Expensive to build, expensive to maintain, job security for the author, bound to be riddled with bugs until version 3 at least, and worst of all given my deadline, it takes a long time (think of an estimate and multiply by 3)
- Download some open source code form SourceForge - The Mega Corp USA will still be responsible for maintaining the code in the long run (Expensive), I need to customize the open source code to my requirements, but at least I have a running start which should reduce the time to delivery. Hopefully the open source code has been used by more than just me (by definition), so therefore it will likely be more robust (fewer bugs) than writing from scratch. I still have my job security as a programmer, because it is still custom code developed, adapted and maintained by Mega Corp USA (expensive).
- Utilize a SaaS component - Once the interface is written to incorporate the component within the corporate infrastructure, I can use the component immediately, multiple users are using the exact same version of the code and so therefore there should be fewer bugs. There is a quote somewhere that states something along the lines of “No bug can withstand the stare of 1000 eyes” - in other words the more people that use a program the more likely it will be bug free. The vendor is responsible for upgrading the component, and here is the really good news: Since you have a well defined interface, the upgrade will be completely transparent to Mega Corp USA. Rather than a spider’s web of interfaces that cause upgrades to take years and cost a small fortune, SaaS upgrades should be completely pain free. As an example of this in action consider Salesforce.com. I may have all of my sales funnel information in SalesForce but every time they upgrade their code it will have NO IMPACT on my organization.
I believe that the case for software components are sufficiently compelling that Corporate America is being forced to sit up and take notice. It’s just a matter of time before components are widely utilized.
One of the major hurdles to be cleared before this becomes reality however is the other items from my “it Depends” list above, i.e. It depends upon who else is using the component, what the other users think of the component. That is exactly the problem that TENXCO is solving. A search, ranking and rating service for Web Services and SaaS components.
Filed under: Web Services, Web2.0
Andrew, good observastions, however, a few questions:
- in your usage, and I suppose in general, are webservices and SaaS interchangeable terms?
-what’s the difference between SaaS in your usage above and what we have today in ASP delivered software?
- what is the commercial arrangement or what types are available, if any, with the developers/distributors of the SaaS components? Is there a common commercial model?
- how can you be sure that the as the component is updated, it won’t impact other pieces tied to it? There really isn’t any guarantee is there?…
- you note that broad acceptance is important and it implies that the source of the component must have a solid reputation, but I think its important to state that the source must be reputable…I could see this raising all sorts of security concerns - for instance, what if someone were to imbed some malware in the code that cause a security breach…
Again, good article