We all know the adage ‘The early bird catches the worm but the second mouse gets the Cheese’ and in my mind it’s got great parallels in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) vs Software as a Service (SaaS) debate.
Although Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the poster child for IaaS, Salesforce could be seen as the precursor to the revolution that we now call Cloud computing. Their vision was to provide a hosted Sales and Marketing solution that gave you a tool-set to quickly build integrated business solutions as well as the fully secure hosted environment – and that was in 1996.
AWS launched in 2004 eventually creating a global acceptance that IaaS was good for business and is now hungrily looking to local markets for growth.
To confirm this, three cloud articles popped into my feed last week. UK centric infrastructure announcements from AWS and Microsoft: large brands on the edge of the finance sector like Aviva coming out publicly saying that they have adopted AWS1 and finally the recent public admission by the Guardian that their attempt to build an internal cloud turned into a ‘complete and total disaster’ and are now fully embracing AWS for a public cloud 2.
So where will the next-generation business apps be built? Obviously the Cloud – but in my mind the infrastructure is an enabler and the business value is derived from the application.
So why do I think Salesforce will benefit from this? In close parallel to the growth of IaaS, Salesforce has been maturing its Software as a Service offering. Starting out with its CRM tool Salesforce now adds services to it’s own Cloud at an ever increasing rate (a Service Cloud, Social Media, Marketing, Analytics and even IoT are already there). It also encourages application builders to offer their products directly on the Salesforce Cloud through the AppExchange – all of which can be seamlessly integrated to Salesforce. This allows companies to following consumers and downloading what they want from the AppExchange.
Hopefully you can see the point I am driving at – AWS has made the public Cloud acceptable but will the real winner be Salesforce ?
Finally, don’t get me wrong – I still love the Cloud – but give me the Cloud with an application tool set ready to go and we’re really talking business. Whatever happens next it is going to be fascinating.
Martin Brazill 