Klir Technologies Weblog

Your Favorite IT Community

I was doing some research the other day and came across an interesting online site that was based in the UK and created primarily for IT folks in the education space ("Getting you the information on the best school IT suppliers and services in one place"). The site is called EduGeek. While I know there are a number of general IT community sites out there, I thought it was great to see one dedicated to a specific vertical, like education, where they face very similar issues, budgets, etc. It makes perfect sense, but it also got me thinking about what other niche IT community sites there might be out there. I'd love to hear what other sites people use, or know of, that are like EduGeek. And for that matter, what are your favorite/most popular IT based community sites?

Knowledge Networking: The Next Generation of Online User Communities

During the past two years the consumer marketplace has been abuzz about social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. The evolution of this Internet social paradigm has sparked a variety of topical discussions, debates and high-profile acquisitions. Yet a corollary application of this type of technology in the enterprise business sector has been woefully absent. That is, until Klir announced Analytics 3.0 at the end of September 2006, debuting the first “Knowledge Networking” capabilities in IT management.

In our product development cycle in the preceding year, we did NOT spend much time examining our competitors in the IT management industry. Rather, we spent time studying “what works well” on the web – principally in the consumer marketplace.

Social networking sites demonstrated highly desirable characteristics of viral growth, rapid user adoption and emotional attachment. Analyzing our abilities to apply this type of functionality in the business sector, while interesting, did not offer enough value to develop baseline professional networking capabilities (such as LinkedIn) within our solutions.

However, examining the business processes of our users revealed an innate desire of IT professionals to leverage the best practices of their colleagues – effectively, applying knowledge within a solution.  Today, this is achieved by hiring and paying for scores of subject matter experts – an expensive proposition based on the skill sets of a particular consultant or firm. Why not expand your world? Tap into the knowledge of Users outside your personal professional network. Browse contributions from Klir Users and Partners who have demonstrated expertise in their respective fields.

Klir Analytics 3.0 enables its users to publish, share and copy the best practices of others within the community. Effectively, all proprietary data of the User is stripped out of the “post” in the community; but the rule set and policies can be browsed, copied and instantly applied to your systems with a single click. That’s it. 

For example, perhaps you are not an expert on managing your Dell PowerEdge servers. Notwithstanding the fact that Klir can collects more than 100 metrics on Dell servers – what should you care about? What metrics are important? Fortunately, someone else in the Klir User community is an expert on Dell PowerEdge servers. Thus, you can quickly browse, identify and apply the best practices of another individual to your systems. Customize the dashboards, reports or alerts if you like. You can also rate, comment and see how many others have “copied” this same best practice to determine its value (same idea as a book review and comments on Amazon or Netflix). 

Sounds simple, because it is. However, the technical gyrations on the back-end are very complex. Fortunately we are in the business of doing the heavy-lifting and making these capabilities available to you for free.

The beauty of this patent-pending Knowledge Networking system available in Klir Analytics 3.0, is the simplicity of its use, design and application. The goal: spread the knowledge, value and expertise of other IT professionals with the community to better manage your IT resources. 

Our users are smart, so are you. We value the contribution of our Users and Partners to the community. Join the Klir community and leverage our Knowledge Networking capabilities to help you be more effective as an IT professional.

Build features that are only available from a SaaS product version – the big guys can’t match it.

As SaaS continues to take root in the marketplace, more companies are emerging that offer little more than a web version of an enterprise software solution. Consider the number of knock-offs of office productivity tools. There are literally dozens of vendors that offer word processing and spreadsheets free-of-charge over the Internet.

However, what is the motivator to change from my existing solution? While version control and sharing features are “nice-to-have” capabilities for collaboration, it is not enough to motivate a change in my habit. More importantly, given that I need to work on a plane, and already have MS Office at home and work, the incentive to make the change is little to none.

An overarching value proposition that cannot be readily duplicated by traditional enterprise software solutions is fundamental to long-term success as a SaaS provider. Specifically, you must deliver a capability, a feature, or information that is facilitated by centralized administration and management of user data. Two great examples:

1. Salesforce.com offers a good lesson by appealing to the VP of Sales, to manage, oversee and access data from remote field sales personnel. Specifically the added layer of oversight, reporting and visibility, has proven to be a sufficient value proposition to spur a migration from enterprise to SaaS CRM solutions, given the immediacy and availability of important sales data.

2. Concur Technologies empowers companies to control expenses and globally enforce travel policies from a centralized management portal. Concur’s solutions are particularly compelling because it readily improves business process and reduces internal administrative costs, while facilitating quick expense reimbursement for employees.

Both of these companies have captured the admiration of the industry, press and analysts, because of their ability to differentiate and erode market share from more significant, established enterprise software vendors. Their differentiation is based on a value proposition that compels a commitment to change and migrate from the old to new.

Competitively, the big guys have more money than you do as an emerging SaaS vendor. Get creative, and examine the business processes of your target user to evaluate how you can offer something compelling, unique and different that is facilitated by your SaaS business model. It must be significant enough to motivate change. 

"Nice to have" doesn't win.

Release 101 for SaaS and Web 2.0

Helping investors and customers understand and appreciate the value of rapidly evolving best practices is a critical step for the SaaS solutions provider. Traditional software development and delivery processes are proven and accepted, and customers accustomed to the on-premise software licensing paradigm encounter new operational imperatives when considering an on-demand solution for the first time. Understanding the implications of a rapid development and release model is a common impediment to SaaS adoption. Annual release cycles conform to the norm and confer a sense of low risk and stability, while the concept of quarterly or monthly release cycles represents a foundational change. Today we’ll discuss the operational implications of the rapid release cycle and the advantages and challenges for customers and providers.

The Long Cut to the Long Tail

The SaaS model neither infers nor permits an erosion of the basic software development planning and management principles or practices that have evolved to assure quality. The best SaaS companies develop software and manage release using the same basic guidelines employed by models that are more traditional. In practice, the software development model is irrelevant, as long as the principles of requirements analysis, specification, software architecture, implementation, test, and documentation are managed to a quality result. Building software is not an artistic endeavor; it is an exercise in process, measurement, delivery, and execution. Each iterative software release must deliver value to secure customer confidence and acceptance of the rapid release model, and the time-honored axiom of “Do the right things right” is foundational to the quality of any SaaS product.

Better for Who?

A frequent release environment presents challenges for the SaaS provider. Traditional lines of responsibility and demarcation are blurred inside a SaaS company, where software and its supporting infrastructure are inseparable, and where customer adoption is immediate and ubiquitous. These conditions require unprecedented alignment between Engineering and Operations teams and compel an absolute commitment to balancing quality, usability, and time to market objectives. A true multi-tenant SaaS solution provider has the ability to deliver universal functionality to every user at next log-in, a powerful position. Once you pull the release lever, no customer action is required to take advantage of your new functionality. Since late adoption is not an option for the SaaS customer, it is the responsibility of the provider to understand and address implications for the user community before delivery. When considering the value of a conceptual feature or usability change, ask “What does the customer do with what she has today, will she still be able to do it tomorrow, and does she need what I plan to give her next?” Changes delivered to customers must be additive; SaaS providers who constantly release improvements which are perceived as remediative by users risk the introduction of legitimate concerns about the maturity of their product and its associated product releases processes.

Collaborative Agility

The rapid release schedule compresses the training and information dissemination cycle for customers and users, so it is important that front-end functionality be presented in an intuitive and understandable fashion. One common objection to releasing “too often” is the challenge of addressing user confusion arising from changes to existing product functions and capabilities, which have been integrated into core customer business processes. This objection should be taken seriously, as it often points to ineffective product management, where the customer position is inadequately represented in the analysis and planning process, or to insufficient and ineffective marketing communication programs. Both of these problems are easily solved through awareness, acceptance, and process improvements. At Klir, we carefully evaluate the implications of any considered functional change by assessing the historical usage of our community, and integrate this process into our formal requirements process. For example, we recently eliminated a subset of KPI report templates and ongoing support for Internet Explorer 5.0 only after we validated their usage within our community over the preceding 12 months and were satisfied that we would not impact a single user. In a multi-tenant environment, complete satisfaction is not always possible, but as a goal, it represents an appropriate starting point.

Always Open

Back-end releases are governed by the same considerations, and must be carefully planned and managed within defined service windows and within established SLA parameters. Frequent data center upgrades, which are visible to the user community, introduce a sense of insufficient planning, sub-optimal system architecture, or a reactive provider culture. Each back-end update introduces the risk of a deleterious impact on uptime and reliability, and unintended customer awareness of otherwise routine system administration has beleaguered many early stage SaaS companies. Top providers set themselves apart through a focus on operational excellence, a strategy that pays dividends in the mid- and long term.

Over the past few years, the maturation of open source software, the emergence of on-demand and self-service solutions, and the value shift to information access and analysis has created unprecedented demand for solutions delivered using the SaaS model. To take advantage of these efficiencies and turn them into opportunities, a degree of market evolution is required. Market concerns related to a rapid release cycle are best assuaged through performance. A SaaS release strategy that provides consistent improvements to the product without negatively impacting customer business processes or end user familiarity is the key to long term success. By doing the right things right, a top SaaS provider will enable customers to achieve continuous business process improvement from a rapid release cycle, creating evangelical users and real value.

3.0 Beta Launch & SaaScon

I am spending a nice relaxing morning, on a beautiful day in Seattle, finally getting a chance to catch up and reflect a little on a busy week. We had a very successful launch of the Klir Analytics 3.0 Beta on Monday, and also spent the first two days of the week (Monday and Tuesday) down in San Francisco at IDG's SaaScon event. I wanted to share some thoughts on both of these exciting events for the company.

A significant release like the one we had on Monday is always an exciting team event. The work that goes into a release like this is almost always intense, and pushes individuals as well as the team. It is sometimes easy to get lost in the forest in the closing weeks of a launch, as there are so many tasks that go into the final release, that you tend to forget the significance of the changes and the work going on. It really is incredible how much work was completed in such a relatively short period of time. Now that we are through the release (and surely back into another big push!) I hope everyone on the team will at least get a chance to take a step back and realize what an amazing job was done by all.

So what was done? A TON! We had four significant components to the new release. First is an entirely new front end UI. Included in the facelift was re-coding the front end in AJAX. Taking a page out of some of the interesting developments on the consumer side of applications, the interface is dynamic, flexible, and easy to personalize to each individuals preference.

The second significant update with the release is launching a community based forum and user group in connection with the service, allowing for collaboration and sharing of best practices. There will be a lot more to talk about on this subject in the coming months. There is incredible excitment, interest, and opportunity for the market - especially for small to mid-size companies with this new capability.

The third part of the release is that we are now delivering relevant industry content directly into the application. This means that users will have important and helpful content delivered directly to them at the time they need it most. This is going to lead to a significant improvement in the workflow and process that IT users typically go through when managing their IT investments.

And lastly, with this release, we are now offering a free entry-level version of the service. We are already seeing a large number of users coming in and registering.

So, as you can imagine, there was a lot to talk about in the release, and we were fortunate enough to get a fair amount of press around the announcement on Monday. Articles were published by eWeek, Network World, CRN, IDG News, and others. If you are interested in reading some of them, check out the news section of our main site. One of my favorites was Phil Wainewrights posting on his ZDnet SaaS blog. I have been following his writings for years, including a few years ago when he was writing a lot around the idea of Loosely Coupled. We also had the pleasure of meeting with him and other industry thought leaders at SaaScon, which brings me to the other item I wanted to share.

As I mentioned, we spent the first part of the week down in San Francisco at SaaScon. The event was interesting and well attended. One of the highlights of the show was getting to meet with some of the thought leaders in the space. In addition to meeting with Phil Wainewright, we were able to sit down with Tim Chou (former head of Oracle's On-Demand effort and author of "The end of Software"), who gave the opening address on Monday morning, and John Gallant from NetworkWork. It was rewarding to get really positive reaction and feedback from both of these guys, as they see any number of new ideas, approaches and companies in a given week.

So, all in all, it was a fantastic and exciting week. The new product looks incredible, the response from users and industry experts has been fantastic, and working on a great team has been rewarding.

Solving IT Management Challenges with SaaS Solutions

There are a rapidly intensifying set of market forces which are coming together to fuel customer interest and adoption of new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions aimed at solving age-old IT management challenges.

First, customers are increasingly frustrated with the hassles and costs of managing complex IT environments. Rather than leveraging their IT operations to meet their business objectives, many organizations find themselves simply reacting to problems in an attempt to keep IT outages from disrupting their business.

Second, enterprise organizations can no longer afford to manage IT on their own. Escalating economic and competitive pressures are forcing organizations of all sizes to seek new sourcing strategies to offload the burden of day-to-day IT management in order to achieve better ROI on their IT investments.

Third, organizations are looking for an alternative to traditional outsourcing. Handing over the entire IT operation to an outsourcer has proven to be a risky proposition since a large proportion of full-scale outsourcing deals fail to achieve their original objectives and are either terminated or substantially restructured.

Fourth, a new generation of remote monitoring technologies which can be provisioned ‘on-demand’ via SaaS solutions is emerging. These new technologies and services now enable users to ‘out-task’ specific aspects of their IT management responsibilities without the risks associated with traditional outsourcing arrangements.

Fifth, business professionals are expecting an increasing array of management services to be available on-demand at work the way entertainment and leisure-time services are available on-demand at home. Whether it is leveraging on-demand salesforce automation or IT management, organizations increasingly want to obtain the functionality quickly without extended implementation cycles or added infrastructure costs.

So, why are many organizations considering SaaS alternatives to traditional inhouse IT management when they are still apprehensive about using a managed service provider (MSP) to perform these responsibilities for them?

In many cases, organizations don’t want to relinquish their IT management responsibilities. Instead, they want easier and more effective tools to get this important job done.

These trends will be discussed at greater length during a panel session entitled, “Applying SaaS Principles to Meet Your IT Management Requirements”, at SaaScon in San Francisco on Monday, September 25 at 4pm.

www.thinkstrategies.com www.saas-showplace.com www.msp-showplace.com

SaaS: Do not attempt to match feature for feature – you’ll lose.

Enterprise software in the mid-90’s evolved based on the assumption that every company would own, manage, and maintain applications inside traditional client-server architecture. As a result, enterprise software development reflects this assumption, both positive and negative, which provides doors and windows for SaaS vendors.

The Door: On one hand, enterprise software has a huge head start because they have been developing features based on five to ten years of product feedback. This has enabled enterprise software vendors to refine the value of core product offerings, while extending the specialization to provide more depth functionally to power users. Users have come to understand both the capabilities and limitations of these applications, while management has also come to understand long-term costs of ownership.

The Window: On the other hand, enterprise software is far behind on the innovation curve, because their vision has been clouded by product development based on old assumptions. Enterprise software vendors have failed to leverage the power of the Internet to extend capabilities, continue to employ traditional product development methodologies, and have failed to identify new business models (out of a legitimate fear of eroding margins).

As a result, a ripe environment exists for SaaS vendors to deliver product to the market based on already-known core-product capabilities of enterprise software. Then, extend your capabilities based on innovative feature development made possible through SaaS architecture.

SaaS vendors should avoid investing resources into matching specialized enterprise software features, which serve a narrow user base. You’ll lose this game, because you likely do not have the resources to invest, and SaaS architecture may not be well suited to support certain specialized capabilities (e.g. OLAP functionality).

Microsoft Word v. Google Writely. No where are the above concepts more self-evident than in the evolution of word processing during the past 10 years. During the past ten years, Microsoft milked the cow for all she was worth in word processing, offering the same old glass of milk everyday – specialization was limited to nonfat, 2%, whole milk, and lactose-free milk (Wow!). However, in a matter of months, Writely developed the same core functionality (2% milk), then offered new milk products – like cheese and butter.

Specifically, Writely harnessed the power of the Internet to offer a twist on old problems, and new innovative capabilities. Two simple examples:

1. Version control of documents has been an old problem with Word documents for years – three users working on the same copy of a document in different locations make changes. Track changes doesn’t work in this environment, so how do you rectify the situation? With Writely, version control is inherent with the product offering – three, five or ten users could be working on the same copy of a document, because there is only one copy (in the cloud), which track changes from all users simultaneously. Additionally, the originator of a document, can elect to share it with any user, anywhere, without setting up a Sharepoint server.

2. Templates for Word documents have been created by the Microsoft team, and because of their resources, they have expanded these templates over the course of ten years. However, three templates today are commonplace within Word for a letter. Writely, on the other hand, did not initially offer, or create any templates. Rather, Writely provides a platform for any user to publish a template into the community, including tags to describe its purpose. As a result, Writely, instantly had hundreds of templates overnight. Additionally, I can search for a very specific template based on any user tag (e.g. cover letter annual report).

Even with the resources of Google behind it now, Writely still does not offer 100% of the features of Word. However, Writely does offer the 80% of features that represent all the power needed by 95% of the entire user base. Combined with the above-mentioned Internet-enabled features and a different business model (free consumer version supported by advertising), expect to witness a burgeoning Writely user base.

The lesson: don’t try to match feature to feature with traditional enterprise software vendors. Even with billions in the bank, Google isn’t doing it. Differentiate based on capabilities that can’t be matched by the big guys.

Make butter – not lactose-free acidophilus milk.

SaaS: Don’t mistake it for differentiation leading to long term success.

9 Topics to consider if you are building a SaaS company.

Entrepreneurs today are flooding the marketplace with first-generation enterprise software, delivered through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model. Enamored with the success of Salesfor    ce.com and prodded by Venture Capitalists (VCs), these budding entrepreneurs are making bold claims of changing the world and beating up big established players, simply because they deliver much of the same functionality through a SaaS business model.

Unfortunately, a SaaS-flavor version of enterprise software is simply not enough for long term success.

The secret is out, SaaS is a delivery model that major software vendors are already exploring, if not pursuing aggressively, because of the inherent benefits to customers. Consider investments in the past 12 months by Microsoft (Office Live), BMC (BMC Patrol Express) and Business Objects (Crystal Reports XI) to name a few.

Certainly, some entrepreneurs will get lucky. They will develop a first-generation SaaS model of software in a mature market, and yes, some of the “big guys” will elect to acquire these new start-ups for a healthy price. However, to become a company long term, requires a sustainable business model, real customers and revenues, which necessitates differentiation to be competitive.

At Klir, we founded the company as an ASP in late 2000. Our Company was inspired by the vision of delivering IT management solutions through a SaaS model. We have certainly made some mistakes along the way, but some good bets too. Set forth below are nine (9) topics that SaaS vendors should consider as their business evolves. I’ll be exploring these topics over several months on this blog and invite your comments, wisdom and feedback.

1. Do not attempt to match feature for feature – you’ll lose. Enterprise software companies built features to satisfy the appetite of every user. As a SaaS product developer, find the hungriest users and build the features they need to accomplish functional requirements (the 50-80 percent of product that everyone uses), then concentrate product development on SaaS-enabled capabilities (which cannot be matched by enterprise software).

2. Build meaningful features that can only be accomplished through a SaaS product version – the big guys can’t match it. Specifically, consider capabilities that would be valuable to a highly distributed enterprise or user group. This may include collaboration capabilities within a broader online community or user forum to publish best practices or templates.

3. Leverage meta-data and expose it to your users – everyone loves relevant data. The value of the data across your user base is significant, and the big guys can’t do it (since data resides inside customers’ premises). With large amounts of data, math is your friend – you can employ traditional statistical analyses or develop custom algorithms. Maintain privacy, but consider exposing aggregate meta-data and analytics that reflect industry trends.

4. Invest in your User Interface and make it “Dick and Jane” easy to use – the big guys aren’t so appealing. Consider the simplicity of successful consumer-based applications such as Google or Amazon. Business application developers can learn a lot. Note to self: AJAX is not a bathroom cleanser, but a programming language that equates to sex appeal in a Web interface.

5. Provide a personalized user experience. Whether it is “MyYahoo” or “MySpace”, consumer sites have taught us that users love to personalize their experience. Get it right in your business application and provide not only look and feel personalization, but customizable views and sorting capabilities.

6. Deliver now – you have got to be faster than enterprise software. Any SaaS product should deploy in a day (for a typical mid-sized company). If OLAP integration is an adjective to describe your architecture, good luck. It is all about speed to demonstrate your capabilities (e.g. Salesforce instant access to remote field sales personnel).

7. Be responsive to your customers - Enterprise software will be 12 months behind you. Engage your customers, solicit their feedback, build an advisory board, and readily adjust product roadmap priorities to reflect customer requests. Timely improvements, will win the loyalty of your user base.

8. Pricing: think nuts, both squirrels and elephants eat them. Gain an intimate understanding of your operating costs, and price your SaaS product to preserve margins while delivering value to your clients. Most business will analyze SaaS offerings over a three-year term versus enterprise software. Serve nuts and the squirrels will arrive; elephants will find you by following the commotion caused by squirrels.

9. “S”ervice is the most important letter in the acronym SaaS. Enterprise software developers go on vacation for two weeks after an 18-36 month product release cycle. The first two weeks after a SaaS product release is the most important two weeks for your Company, you have got to deliver. Now the work begins.