NetSuite on Thursday unveiled its SuiteCloud Ecosystem, expanding its on-demand enterprise software service to include cloud computing.
The company, which hosts enterprise software on demand, is branching out to allow customers the ability to push their core operations into the clouds.
As part of its SuiteCloud Ecosystem, NetSuite is launching a developer program, SuiteCloud Developer Network, and an online cloud-computing application marketplace, SuiteApp.com.
The SuiteCloud platform will be built on core NetSuite enterprise resource management (ERP) software, as well as its customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce offerings.
NetSuite is delving into cloud computing at a time when this relatively new industry is coming to grips with its own definition and purpose.
But Zuora is betting on a computing trend: that as more applications move to the cloud in coming years, the natural corollary is that developers will follow the money and necessarily move in the same direction.
Even on Facebook.
"There are 140 new applications a day on Facebook because it's so easy and so viral a platform," Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo said. "But is anyone making money on Facebook?"
Probably not many. While developers have built profitable businesses on cloud-based platforms, such as Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com's Force.com, and Google AppEngine, the same can't be said of Facebook. That's a source of no small amount of frustration for developers hemmed in by Facebook's restrictions on placing ads on the service (not to mention the relatively low advertising rates for in-application ads on the service.)
That does not preclude the possibility that someone will find a way to unlock the potential of the so-called Facebook Economy. But so far, it's more of a scenario than a reality. Tzuo, who is about to give it a shot, argues that if each active user on the service had a $1 monthly subscription, that scenario could turn into a reality with more than $1 billion in annual subscription revenue.
So it is that on Monday, Zuora is debuting a cloud-based service at the Demo conference. The product, called Z-Commerce, consists of different modules that a developer can use to set up and manage a subscription service on Facebook. Z-Commerce also comes with pre-built widgets that can get plugged into existing Facebook apps without the need for additional code work.
For its part, Zuora assumes responsibility for the back-end arrangements, including billing and payments. The ambition is large: to attract enough Facebook developers to the idea and transform their applications into subscription services. If enough of them conclude that this is an idea whose time has come, Tzuo believes that Facebook can actually evolve into an enterprise cloud computing platform.
A tall order, to be sure. Still, I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't have any issues if that came even halfway true.
Online image editing suite Aviary is now open and available to all after serving out a lengthy private beta which lasted about a year and a half.
The suite is comprised of four Web-based image editing tools that aim to compete with traditional software solutions like Adobe's Creative Suite by putting all of the applications right in your browser, making them accessible from anywhere.
The opening comes with the imminent launch of two new premium levels of service, which offer paying members more control over their creations than free users have. While all four Web applications are available to users at each of the three levels of service, the higher tiered plans let them save more items, remove and customize watermarks, and get access to professionally produced tutorial content.
The premium plans, which go live next week (November 3rd to be precise), cost $7.99 per month or $79.90 per year for the "green" plan, and $14.99 per month or $149.90 per year for the top-of-the-line "blue" plan. You can see a full sheet of the differences here, with the key one being both the number of creations you're able to save, and the option of keeping them private.
We've got 100 subscription discounts available, which knock $55 off the yearly subscription price of either premium plan. To claim yours go here before signing up. Embedded below is a quick video to show you what you're capable of doing with Aviary's tools.
Previous Aviary coverage:
Under the Radar: Eye candy that's actually useful
Aviary's creative suite is more than a pretty Flash app
Flash apps are taking over--Phoenix is the latest proof
The company on Tuesday morning announced Z-Payments, an online payment service for subscription-based businesses. Interestingly, the product will also accept payments from PayPal.
Along with the announcement, PayPal's president, Scott Thompson, has joined Zuora's board of directors.
What with the stock market in a funk and companies acutely concerned about the impact of a slowing economy on their bottom lines, the pitch Tzuo plans to make is that Z-Payments can handle the job of collecting recurring payments more efficiently and at a lower cost than doing it themselves--especially compared with paper-based payment processes. So the question becomes: If the economy tanks, will subscription services like Zuora's benefit?
In an interview, Tzuo made the case for the subscription model. In a post he wrote a few days ago, he laid out the same argument:
For one, the cost to subscribe is much more affordable than it is to buy. Look at Zipcar, for instance. It's far less expensive to subscribe to an entire fleet of cars vs. purchasing your own. Not to mention, many can't get the credit they need to buy a car or other goods right now, making subscriptions the only option. Likewise, it's more cost effective for businesses to use SaaS applications. Companies operating under this model have an advantage to win more business for that reason alone. Salesforce.com, as an example, thrived during the recession from 2001 to 2002.
Also on the subject of cost savings, it's less expensive for companies to offer their apps as a subscription. Building a Web app can be very inexpensive compared to a desktop app or one that you buy off the shelf. Paying for server space vs. manufacturing and shipping is also a consideration that many businesses are taking into account as they build out their products.
This marks the company's second product in the online subscription segment. In the spring, Zuora introduced Z-Billing.
I kidded Tzuo about the PayPal arrangement, suggesting it may be the prelude to a marriage between the companies. But it's not so far-fetched. PayPal doesn't do billing, and in an interview with ZDNet's Phil Wainewright, Thompson gushed about the extension of Zuora's pay-as-you-go model.
"All these enterprise software vendors sell you a chunk of stuff, most of which you don't want," he said--and it becomes a burden, he added. "Your business is slowed down because you're dragging along this big anchor."
Google Chrome will work with NetSuite's online accounting and customer-relations software, the company said Friday.
Elements of the company's online tools, including editing text and drag-and-drop operations, benefit from Chrome's fast JavaScript, NetSuite said. However, Google's assertions of compatibility with Apple Safari notwithstanding, NetSuite said it will gradually extend support to its customers, finishing by mid-October.
The company boasted it's the first online business application to support Chrome, just as it was the first with native support for the iPhone's version of Safari and the new Firefox 3.0.
But that sort of support seems more like a reasonably clever attempt to capitalize on the Chrome buzz than anything customers truly are clamoring for.
After all, NetSuite is geared toward businesses that typically are the kinds of conservative and technologically unadventurous customers who aren't first in line to try the latest beta version of a Web browser. One of the reasons Microsoft won't frog-march us all to Internet Explorer 7, much less IE 8, is that many businesses have set up operations using IE 6, even though it was introduced in 2001.
Two on-demand business software firms reported accelerating adoption of their suites today.
NetSuite reported second-quarter 2008 revenue of $36.6 million, up 43 percent from the same period in 2007. Net loss per GAAP was down to $3.1 million in the quarter, compared with $9.6 million in Q2 2007.
Sign-ups for Zoho.
(Credit: Zoho)The company also announced new midmarket and enterprise customers for its ERP and CRM suites, which are delivered as Web applications. Surgical robotics company Intuitive Surgical adopted NetSuite CRM; Nestle UK used services from NetSuite to launch an online store; and sports market firm Wasserman Media Group adopted NetSuite for accounting functions, replacing an installation of Microsoft Dynamics-Great Plains, NetSuite announced.
Meanwhile, Zoho, a provider of business software-as-a-service to small and midmarket companies, prepared to announce that it has reached the milestone of 1 million sign-ups for its services. Zoho's Raju Vegesna says that of those, roughly 300,000 to 350,000 still log on to the service each month. He also believes that Zoho is tracking at about one-third of Google Apps adoption. (Google Apps is Google's business-focused app suite; Vegesna did not consider individual or business use of Google Docs, which offers some of the same services.)
These success stories, in addition to the continued strong performance by Salesforce.com, put continued pressure on the distribution models and market that Microsoft and other traditional software houses rely on.
Microsoft detailed on Tuesday its road map and pricing for Web-based software suites built for big companies and growing businesses.
Enabling telecommuting, which many employers and workers increasingly favor, is likely to be a selling point for the productivity and "deskless worker" tools within the Microsoft Online Services lineup.
The move is part of Redmond's push to integrate online and desktop software, shifting much of the heavy lifting to the "cloud."
"Microsoft Online Services is a key component of the software plus services initiative, and we're seeing customers, partners and even competitors embrace this flexible approach to the cloud," Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, said in a statement.
Details were unveiled Tuesday in Houston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.
Microsoft's per-user monthly fees for its online business services.
(Credit: Microsoft)For $15 per month per person, the business productivity suite offers an Outlook-integrated Exchange Online for e-mail and calendars, Office SharePoint Online collaboration, messaging via Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting video-enabled Web conferencing.
The software giant will charge another $3 per month per user for the Deskless Worker Suite, which combines flavors of SharePoint Online and Exchange Online. The SharePoint portal offers access to internal company sites and search. E-mail, calendars, security filters, and Outlook Web Access Light are included with Exchange Online Deskless Worker.
Microsoft aims to simplify otherwise complex corporate tasks managed by engineers or IT technicians. For instance, a WYSIWYG interface would enable an IT worker to give a new employee access to the company tools in a series of steps that could be shorter than setting up, say, a free Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail account.
One can sign up online to try the beta services.
Exchange Online and Office SharePoint Online remain in beta, with final availability set for sometime in the second half of 2008, when Office Communications Online beta is also due. Microsoft plans for international availability in 2009.
The company offers to pay resellers of its Online Services 12 percent of the price of each contract secured during the first year, and 6 percent per subscription year thereafter. Interested companies can learn more at Microsoft's QuickStart Web site.
Microsoft partners and resellers of Online Services include Accenture, CDW, and Unisys. Nokia is among the companies using the online tools for messaging and collaboration.
Microsoft Online Services includes these tools.
(Credit: Microsoft)Google Docs, the online office suite from the search giant, now has some limited but still useful support for PDF files.
PDF files now show in Google Docs' interface.
People using the service now can upload and view documents encoded with the widely used and now standardized Portable Document Format initially created by Adobe Systems. People also can transfer PDFs stored on the Web. (Look below for a screenshot showing the two-pane PDF view.)
The move, announced on the Google Docs blog Friday, isn't much of a surprise. In addition to the fact that it makes eminent sense, close observers already had begun seeing signs that hinted at imminent Google Docs PDF support.
Google Docs, still in beta testing, competes with Microsoft Office but is relatively primitive when it comes to feature support.
However, because it's Web-based, Google can add new features relatively easily; users simply use the Web site, and they appear, one of the chief advantages of the software-as-a-service approach. And given that Google's three big areas of focus are search, ads, and applications, expect lots of resources to be poured into this area.
I found the PDF support snappy and very handy. However, my quick test of the service showed some rough spots with the PDF support.
For example, I couldn't find a way to zoom in or out, which definitely is essential, even on ordinary 1024x768-pixel screens. Being able to hide the minidocument page view pane on the right, which lets you scroll quickly through the document, might help.
Search also doesn't scour the contents of PDF files, a feature whose significance Google, of all companies, presumably understands.
Editing has a long way to go. You can't type text in a PDF, though you can export other Google Docs files to PDF. And copying uses a peculiar box to select text, not the familiar cursor with highlighted words.
You'd better have a screen at least 1024 pixels wide. Most of us with PCs these days do, of course, but what about support for mobile devices?
I also didn't like one user interface moment: the site offered a very unhelpful error page when I tried to upload a file exceeding the 10MB size limit.
Overall, though this is a big step in the right direction.
An example of Google Docs showing a PDF file.
Intuit is announcing today its entry into the growing app platform market. Like Salesforce has done, Intuit's new QuickBase Developer Program will let developers create and sell add-on Web apps that tap into the company's core product: QuickBooks. And like Salesforce, Intuit will market these third-party apps directly to its customers via a promotional channel in the core app. Intuit will go after the small-business market with the program, leaving the enterprise space for Salesforce--even though both companies have customers in the other's main market.
Intuit claims an addressable market of 3.6 million companies that use QuickBooks.
Other players in this space include Google and Amazon. However, their platforms don't come with large audiences of customers already familiar with their back-office business apps.
The QuickBase Developer Program has important elements. First, it gives the Intuit Web database access to data from customers' QuickBooks installations. Most of Intuit's business customers use the QuickBooks installed software, not the online version. The QDP is for Web apps, though: It links apps to data resident on customers' PCs.
A Flash app accessing QuickBooks data, thanks to QDP
QDP apps will be presented in Flex, which has the big advantage of running everywhere (and making it easy to create very pretty applications). However, since QDP apps are targeted primarily at QuickBooks users, and nearly all of them are on Windows, the cross-platform angle isn't that important. The fact that there are a lot of Flex developers is, though.
One of the QDP's slickest pieces is financial. Intuit will handle the billing for QDP apps on the part of developers. That saves them from having to hassle with collecting from their customers. Also, resources for QDP apps, all of which will be hosted by Intuit, will be charged for in a pay-as-you-go system, like Amazon Web Services. That makes QDP apps economically scalable.
The program goes into limited beta on Thursday. Version 1 should open up to all developers this summer.
Per my previous rant on Web start-ups that lack a Big Idea, here's one I appreciate, since it's trying to solve a real problem: NetBooks. This company has built a Web-based suite of interconnected apps designed to run a small business.
It's a noble effort, because the small-business market is murder. It's not that there's a lack of customers, it's just that they are so hard to reach and so different from each other. Building a universal small-biz app is a tricky balancing act.
It looks to me like NetBooks might eventually pull it off, although I'd wait for a Version 2 before I'd recommend the service to my friends who run their own small businesses.
NetBooks: Not exciting, but useful.
In the functions and features department, NetBooks is off to a strong start. If your business fits into the NetBooks target space (product-based businesses, not consultancies), you'll find a rich collection of databases and business logic to manage customers, inventory, shipping, and bookkeeping. For my own demo, I worked a sales order through picking, shipping, and billing. The application correctly moved items from inventory, created shipping labels, an invoice, and so on.
But while CEO Ridgely Evers pitched me on NetBooks as a "complete business operating system," some core functions, such as payroll and e-mail list management, are handled through partnerships (PayCycle and Vertical Response, respectively). Integration with these critical functions seems to be lacking.
And while I'm a big proponent of Web-based applications for workgroups, in NetBooks' case the reliance on the Web doesn't do the application favors. While the architecture guarantees that everyone using it is working on the same data and can get to it from anywhere, the NetBooks UI is archaic: Screens are filled with tiny text and selection boxes, and many rely on drab and uniform tabs for additional info. Navigating from screen to screen is slow. This app needs a UI refresh.
Pretty much everything you need is on the NetBooks screens, but the UI could be more contemporary.
The big difference between NetBooks and QuickBooks Online Edition is that NetBooks is designed to serve all parts of a business, not just bookkeepers. There are lightweight CRM forms in NetBooks, for example.
The suite has only "hundreds" of customers so far, and it is evolving. Evers also told me NetBooks will soon add more features to help its users run a Web-based retail store, and that there will be a cash register (point of sale) module soon, too. However, he's not going to expand the product to serve non-product-based businesses any time soon.
The product costs $200 a month for eight users (you business' CPA, bookkeeper, and marketing professional; plus five others of your choosing). Additional users can be added for a fee. Telephone support from actual company employees is included; Evers says he doesn't appreciate the "deterrent support model" of requiring users to seek other users for support; or for obnoxious hold music that drives customers away.
NetBooks is not yet the killer Web-based office-data suite that Evers wants it to be, but it's a solid app that solves several small-business problems.
See also: NetSuite.
