snaplogic

Snaplogic CEO on integration in the cloud (Q&A)

The rapid rise of cloud computing and near-ubiquity of software-as-a-service (SaaS) has breathed new life into the integration space, or so says Gaurav Dhillon, chairman and CEO of SnapLogic.

SnapLogic is a cloud integration company making a name for itself with technology that can "containerize" data, making it easier to move in and around disparate cloud and on-premise applications and data sources.

I caught up with Dhillon--perhaps best known as CEO and co-founder of publicly traded data integration pioneer Informatica in the early 1990s--after his cameo at Structure 2011 in San Francisco last month. I wanted to get … Read more

MindTouch and SnapLogic partner to juice up your CRM application

When I first saw the headline "MindTouch and SnapLogic Announce Deki for CRM to Enhance the Value of Leading CRM Solutions," I didn't think much of it. Despite being an adviser to MindTouch and watching SnapLogic for the past few years, I couldn't get excited. How sexy can it be to "enhance the value" of SugarCRM and Salesforce.com?

Reading through the press release, it became much more interesting. My company uses SugarCRM, and the idea of connecting SugarCRM with our accounts payable system (through SnapLogic) and integrating the ability to take free-form wiki … Read more

Building the Bazaar: coding community into software

There is a persistent myth that open source operates like Linux, with a global team of developers holding hands and praying for world code peace. Most open-source projects don't work this way, looking much more like Eric Raymond's "cathedral" rather than the holy grail, the "bazaar," as Juergen of SnapLogic points out in an exceptionally insightful post on open-source software development.

The problem with many open-source projects is that while familiarity may not breed contempt, it can certainly breed institutional incompetence:

Why do so many open-source projects not have the active community of external contributors they are hoping for? Because they have been largely developed by co-located teams of hired software engineers, 100% dedicated to the project, managed and organized like any traditional software development effort. This seems to be especially true for the new crop of 'custom build' open-source companies, which would like to take advantage of the open-source business model. They might hope to also enjoy the advantages of the open-source development model one day, but achieving that requires a conscious effort.… Read more

Open APIs versus open source

Juergen Brendell over at SnapLogic writes insightfully about the value of open source versus open APIs (application programming interfaces). (This is a related argument to Savio Rodrigues' insistence on open standards.) Open source is nice and helpful in fostering development communities around a project, Juergen writes, but open APIs go that much further.

But Juergen isn't arguing that you can have one without the other (though if stranded on a deserted island, I think he'd choose open APIs). Rather, he's arguing that developers need open APIs first, with open source a nice complement to them:… Read more