Capping IT Off
After my conspiracy theory on SharePoint 14 overtaking SAP’s Netweaver in a recent blog post, another one popped up in my mind: “Microsoft Commerce Server in the cloud: a threat for Amazon?”.
Here’s the deal: Microsoft is going all SaaSy with their Microsoft Online, also known as BPOS or Business Productivity Online Suite. I had some discussions with Microsoft last week during an executive briefing in Redmond about the way I would like to see Microsoft moving: e.g. fully embracing online as their application delivery platform. Meaning that for instance I’d like to see a full version of Office coming out that runs in a browser and offers offline capabilities and full rich user experience. Consider Internet Explorer 9 or 10 as THE application development framework for Microsoft, a bit like WebKit or the Eclipse core framework.
Feeling Google breathing in their neck with the Google Apps suite, Microsoft started to offer some of their products as a hosted SaaSy product: SharePoint, Exchange, Communication Server, Dynamics, etc. It does make A LOT of sense to do this and let me tell you that this is THE confirmation to the enterprise that SaaS is THE way to go (I’m using too many capital letters, am I?). Why? Well if Microsoft is doing it, then it must be the way to go. With their sales and marketing army force, this is bound to be a sales success. So just let go of your objections against cloud and SaaS stuff (remember resistance is futile) and just accept it. Now that you’ve accepted it, what else can we SaaSify?
Exactly: Commerce Server! And hell it makes a lot of sense. Look, what is Amazon’s business? Right, e-commerce! Even more, they offer an e-commerce out of the box experience to everyone that wants to start their own online shop without the hassle. So if Microsoft would offer their Commerce Server suite as a SaaS solution with great adapters to backend systems like SAP ERP systems and figure out a way to get the way performing rock hard, then it could be an interesting option for enterprises to adopt this solution.
If only SAP would offer now their ERP system in the cloud, it would be a dream. Imagine a cloud data center where SAP has their ERP systems as a service and where Microsoft has e-commerce as a service, connect that together and offer it in some kind of pay-per-use model and you’re all set. You have the elasticity that you need to handle resource spikes during Christmas, you have a reliable hosting partner (MSFT/SAP) and a skilled systems integrator (needless to say: Capgemini).
I’d like to call this Double-E-as-a-Service: e-commerce/ERP-as-a-Service. Can I file a patent for this?
PS: Bill, Steve or Ray: if you are reading this, you can call my manager to hire me. I have some more conspiracy theories.
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Lee Provoost is a Cloud Computing Strategist and ERP+ lead at Capgemini. You can follow his ongoing stream of thoughts on Twitter http://twitter.com/leeprovoost.
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Lee,
Not a short comment; I tried to address a couple of point in your blogpost ..
Let there be no mistake that Microsoft ís fully embracing online and does this as part of an overall strategy called Software + Services :
“Software-plus-Services is the next logical step in the evolution of computing. It represents an industry shift toward a design approach that is neither exclusively software-centric nor browser-centric. By deeply and genuinely combining the best aspects of software with the best aspects of cloud-based services, we can deliver more compelling solutions for consumers, developers and businesses. Microsoft envisions a world where rich, highly functional and elegant experiences extend from the PC, to the Web, to the devices people use every day. Across the industry, Software-plus-Services is growing as a model strategy and even those claiming to deliver Web-only offerings are moving toward hybrid scenarios that involve both services and software.
”
This does mean the internet (and browser) are part of this strategy ofcourse, but not an objective in itsself. The strategy for Office for example is not to rebuild Microsoft Office to run in he browser. Microsoft has previewed Office Web Applications and this is positioned as a solutions whichcontains a rich subset of Microsoft Office. This functionality will be sufficient some certain users but other users will require offline, richer and more powerfull functionality. Next to the desktop and borwser, the mobile device is also part of the way users will want to interact with thier office documents.
I am sure that when internet connectivity and high bandwith will become more pervasive, meaning we can really depend on connectivity being available everywhere, online solutions will make more sense and it’s functionality will become richer. Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft’s solution for Rich Internet Applications (RIA) will definitly play an important role in this.
Although competition plays an important role in the continuous development and innovation of solutions, it is good to recognise that regardless of competition Microosft sees a huge opportunity in Online services. As you righfully say, momentum is growing and Microsoft as a market in for example communication and collaboration solutions can and will act as a market maker in the way companies will plan / deploy and run their productivity platform in the future. Not by simple ripping out the on premise infrastructures, but by allowing organsiations to choose their preferred way of deployment: on premise, hosted by a partner, hosted by Microsoft, or a combinaten of these.
As for your view on CommerceServer, I like the thought. The difference between Microsoft and Amazon is that Amazon (or at least the large part of Amazon) ís a very succesful online retailstore which also facilitates 3rd party retail stores due to its very efficient logistical model. I am not sure that Microsoft aims to compete with that and if they would be as succesful as Amazon. I do not know about the plans / roadmap of Commerce Server but I do like the concept of CommerceServer Online and I am sure this will enable many more organsiations to leverage its functionality in a broader much more scalable way. I am sceptical about the questions if Microsoft should step up to the role of actually facilitating online stores based on this platform. On the other hand Microsof does so for small businesses in the Office Live Smallbiz (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/) but in that case also only provides the platform and some syndication with online market places such as eBay and to the bigger part of online retail.
ERP in the cloud: The major challenge for “SAP in the cloud” will be the question : what is the common demominator in all SAP implementations wordlwide ? I don’t have the answer, but my gut feeling is that the common demoninator is very hard to define because of all organisations having their won tailor made SAP. Although everyone would like to have more functions standardised this is most often not the case. So where would the economy of scale be in an SAP cloud solutions if the majority of functionality is customer specific ? SAP would fundamentally need to change their application model moving forward to bring benefits in cloud based solutions.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for you extensive reply!
It is a fact that many people try to see the cloud as THE only way we an innovate or move forward. As the CTO of GigaSpaces, Nati Shalom, pointed out to me, we just have to accept the fact that the cloud or SaaS is not a solution that will fit every situation. But I still like the idea of having a worry free full rich browser based Office that i can start up wherever I am with my settings and workspace.
Regarding to e-commerce. MS could offer a hosted version of an e-commerce suite (bit like amazon stores) to (i guess) bit smaller players, which would give the credibility for large clients to step in the cloud for CommerceCloudServer.
And about SAP, while I was typing up this answer, I saw on Twitter the announcement that SAP teamed up with IBM to deliver some kind of cloudy version of SAP :-) http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10186589-240.html
2009-2010 will be SO MUCH interesting! Keeping a big eye on Azure and BPOS!
Cheers,
Lee
Hi Lee,
As you were talking about SAP ERP in the cloud
You might want to look at https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/14095 .
As one use case, it shows, what you are talking about.
Best Regards,
Frank