Thursday, 24 March 2011
Sales Force as Cloud Computing
Salesforce.com uses cloud computing and software as a service models to offer sales platforms for any type of business
http://www.salesforce.com/
http://www.salesforce.com/
Google Docs
One of the most influential and universal forms of Software as a Service is Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/?pli=1#home
https://docs.google.com/?pli=1#home
Cloud Computing at Google
Google's updated software links as part of cloud computing
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=cloud%20computing
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=cloud%20computing
Software as Service in Cloud Computing
NEW MEDIA
What is “new media”? Newness as a term is a relative concept, as what is “new” has continually transformed generationally, and what was “new” at one point, eventually becomes outdated and passé. But perhaps what can best be described as “new media” implies state of the art, avant-garde, and progressive innovations; always that next step towards some kind of enlightened process improvement. As an elusive or intangible concept, the idea of new media has emerged in the latter part of the 20th century, and evolved to “encompass the amalgamation of traditional media forms with the interactive power of computer[1]” and communications technology and computer-enhanced consumer devices. Essentially, new media has begun to represent the process improvements of the 21st century that are omnipresent internationally. In fact, the new media of this era has become so deeply intertwined into our daily lives that you probably don’t even realize that you use it. It might even be impossible to ever reverse our reliance on such media forms as instant communication and transactions facilitated by perplexing online activities and associated services.
New media such as cloud computing and Software as a Service central to this era holds out the possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as “interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content[2].” The dynamic aspect of new media allows consumption and distribution to be done in real time, a feature which has never previously existed in any social phenomena. New media has established what is often referred to as a “cyberculture”, which has served to transform communications and business paradigms. An important feature of new media and Internet culture is that it does not require its users to understand any of the complicated algorithms and data manipulation; “to understand media is a requirement of media consciousness not technical knowledge.” It simply offers us a straightforward mix between older cultural conventions for data representation with new technical operations.
“Dramatically speeding up the execution of manual techniques, new media makes possible previously non-existent representational techniques[3]”, allowing interactive multimedia to shorten the distance between people all over the world through these electronic communications and technologies. Cloud computing and SaaS radically break the connection between physical place and social place, making physical location much less significant for our social relationships[4].” Interactive virtual communities are being established online that transcend geographical boundaries, serving to eliminate social restrictions and connecting like-minded individuals worldwide. “Facilitating user-to-user interactivity, the advent of the Internet forms such as cloud computing replaces the ‘one-to-many’ model of traditional mass communication[5]” with the possibility of responsiveness accessible in a variety of markets. The “emerging online economies attract attention predicated in large part on the anticipated productivity of network activity, and increasingly seeks to exploit the work of interactivity[6]. Major corporations continue to attempt to exploit the economic potential of this labour on a much larger scale[7]. Through the creation of new market niches, businesses have increased dramatically due to the onset of these new technologies, with two-way dialogue and social networking sites allowing specific targeting and entirely new business models to be pursued. New media and software services offer unprecedented abilities to communicate on traditionally unorthodox mediums, drawing together businesses and individuals across the globe.
SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE
Just as new media has become omnipresent in contemporary culture, software is ubiquitous in today’s business world. Software applications and online services facilitate ordinarily time-consuming business transactions by tracking shipments across multiple countries, managing large inventories, training employees, and even fostering working relationships with customers. Traditional software has begun to seem antiquated, as many vendors and customers have migrated to a ‘software as a service’ business model. Software as a service, or ‘SaaS’, is a “software application delivery model by which an enterprise vendor develops a web-based software application, and then hosts and operates that application over the Internet for use by its customers[8].” Customers are not required to purchase software licenses or additional infrastructure equipment, and typically only pay monthly fees for participating in use of the software. While the SaaS market reached $6.3 billion in 2006, still a small fraction of the over $300 billion licensed software industry, its application has nearly tripled in the past 4 years. Now “demand for SaaS is being driven by real business needs — namely its ability to drive down IT-related costs, decrease deployment times, and promote innovation[9].”
Sometimes referred to as ‘software on demand[10]’, SaaS is software that is deployed over the Internet[11], where a provider licenses an application to customers either as a service on demand, through a subscription, or in a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. This approach to application delivery is part of the utility computing model where all of the technology is in a cloud accessed over the Internet as a service. SaaS is promoted on the basis that it is accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection, with no local server installation required, offering rapid scalability, security improvements, and increased reliability. ‘Cloud computing’ platforms and services that enable SaaS are growing in popularity to minimize the time spent on technical activities. By its very nature, Cloud Computing technology is much easier and quicker to integrate with enterprise applications, freeing companies from traditional software, high failure rates, unacceptable risks, and protracted implementations. SaaS applications are becoming pervasive in today’s tech world, including large players such as Gmail, Google Docs and Salesforce.com. SaaS has verifiably democratized software, allowing small and medium businesses to access functionality that was formerly only the domain of large enterprises. As a breakthrough feature of software as a service, it encapsulates more than just business solutions – SaaS provides corporations with more control over their entire industry.
BROADER ASPECTS OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Among the most popular features of new media, and perhaps of paramount importance, is the remarkable ability of two-way or interactive communication. Despite the evident significance of the phenomenal time compression facilitated by new media, this has been a feature of process improvement for centuries. What is unique to the newest media enhancements of software and online services is the innovation of integrated and interactive media. At the forefront, or the umbrella of the bubble of SaaS, is the not-so utopian development known as Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is a natural evolution of the “widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic and computing. Details are abstracted from end-users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure in the cloud that supports them.” Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity circuit where end-users consume power resources without any necessary understanding of the component devices in the grid required to provide the service. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. Simplistically speaking, cloud computing is the expansive system that encompasses Software as a Service, and allows the convenient, on-demand network that is featured in SaaS[12].” Reducing to its most basic form, cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.
TRANSFORMING BUSINESS PRACTICES WITH SAAS
“The Internet is a medium that offers random access, with no physical beginning, middle or end, expressing itself as multiplicity[13].” But no medium can now function independently and establish its own separate and purified space of cultural meaning, which is the obvious void that the online community fills. We may think of something like a historical progression, of newer media remediating older ones and in particular of digital media remediating their predecessors. “Media are continually commenting on, reproducing, and replacing each other, and this process is integral to media, as media need each other to function as media at all[14].” Economies of proprietary software are constricted so tightly that it is bound to repeat its past whilst churning out more, and faster, in order to deal with the continuously perceived competition[15].
Technology is fundamentally transforming the media market. Gone are the days of week-by-week newspapers and one-way radio or television mass media. In a global marketplace—where 24-hour news cycles and exclusive online content are vital for day-to-day business—service technology is giving companies the power to distribute information instantaneously, when they need it. Since mass media traditionally had been limited solely to print media, naturally businesses were restricted to this sluggish medium. With the explosion into the Internet in the past two decades, online services, facilitated by technologies such as Software as a Service have become the new vogue. Almost in unison with the dot-com bubble, the emergence of social media has presented a new opportunity for social media or buzz monitoring in addition to traditional media. Parallel to this social development, is the maturity of the use of cloud computing for business purposes. Now it is becoming evident that SaaS is the next big step in the logical evolution of software. “Just as businesses replaced the water wheel with electric power from a grid, IT and software have moved far beyond sneakernets, fat fingers, patches and CDs[16].” Providing a true SaaS application will cannibalize existing core traditions and essentially replace limited out-of-the-box functionality with close alignment to key business processes and priorities, and easy adaptability as priorities change. Developed in the late 1990s just following the escalated Internet bubble, the idea of SaaS was seen as a method to reduce cost and also shift server demands from the company to the software provider. As software changes and evolves continuously, SaaS includes technical support as well as constant access to upgrades and the most up-to-date technologies. Prior to SaaS, investment in software meant that business owners had to accept the product as is, with little opportunity to make the software more useful for specific purposes. This is no longer the case.
As appropriately stated by commercial giant and Internet pioneer, Google, their mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Stated by any other company, this mission could be dismissed as quixotic[17].” But suffice it to say that the Google revolution will change individuals’ ability to control how personally identifiable information is collected, exploited and disseminated. Traditional media has been an ephemeral transition to interactive media allowing media conglomerates such as Google to capitalize on the universal conversion to online software. And as the Internet has become a comprehensive, universally accepted entity that is evolving to be faster and farther reaching, cloud computing services such as SaaS along with their reduced up-front costs and risks, is positioned to be the leading method of software licensing.
ALTERING SOCIAL AND BUSINESS INTERACTIONS
With all the hype surrounding social media, it’s easy to overlook the impact of Cloud Computing and in particular, the Software as a Service model that enabled the social media phenomenon. While SaaS isn’t a particularly sexy system, nor is it one that excites the general population the way that social media does, it is going to be the business model of the next decade; a model about adapting business programs to support the sale of services rather than products. International outsourcing and business fragmentation is easier and more accessible than ever. This means that, fundamentally at the heart of businesses, the traditional centralized approach to business is becoming obsolete. This presents enormous economic opportunities for the developing world as online outsourcing collaboration services make this easier than ever.
In the past, companies sought out and contacted customers directly, but the Internet has empowered consumers with the enhanced ability to initiate contact with companies at their convenience, and chat rooms and Internet channels have accelerated the feedback loop on products and services. Now, not only may consumers control their communications with companies, but they may participate in product offerings and determine which products are available to them. The major trend in mass customization has been singlehandedly facilitated by the Internet and Cloud Computing services. In fact, it is a turning point where small companies can explode, while industry giants may miss out. Major conglomerates are at a disadvantage because of the trendy shift to a more personalized approach to computing – a shift led by companies born and raised in the consumer world. “Apple and Google understand in their bones that simplicity and ease of use are essential to broad adoption of products and services. That lesson doesn't come so naturally to Microsoft and IBM[18].” The biggest issue in marketing today is trying to understand the new channel for selling SaaS and cloud services. “While social media changes the playing field for marketing, communications, and customer intimacy, SaaS, changes the entire game and a new league will have to be created. Is your channel program ready to play?”
[1] Matthew Fuller
[2] Lev Manovich
[3] Nick Montfort and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
[4] Croteau and Hoynes 2003
[5] New Media Careers
[6] Mark Andrejevic
[7] Mark Andrejevic
[8] E*Trade
[9] Frederico Etro
[10] Shaun Bradley
[11] See Appendix 1
[13] Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin
[14] Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin
[15] Matthew Fuller
[16] Servicenow.com
[17] Chris Jay Hoofnagle
[18] Bloomberg Newsweek 2011
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(2010). “A Brief History of SaaS”,
(2011). “Software as a Service”, Angel Business Communications Limited,
Bolter, Jay, and Richard Grusin (2000). “Immediacy, Hypermediacy and Remediation” and “Mediation and Remediation.” in Remediation: Understanding New Media, 20-62. Cambridge: MIT Press
Bradley, Shaun (2011). “On-Demand/Saas HR System”, Orange HRM Live, http://www.orangehrm.com/blog/2010/11/08/on-demand-saas-hr-system-orangehrm-live/
Etro, Federico (2009). “The Economic Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Creation, Employment and Output in Europe”, Review of Business Economics, http://www.intertic.org/Policy%20Papers/CC.pdf
Hoofnagle, Chris Jay (2009). “Beyond Google and evil: How policy makers, journalists and consumers should talk differently about Google and privacy,”
Manovich, Lev. "New Media From Borges to HTML." The New Media Reader. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Nick Montfort. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003. 13-25
Mark Andrejevic. (2002). “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 19(2), 230–248.
Matthew Fuller (2003) “It Looks Like You’re Writing a Letter” from Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 137-165.
Montfort, Nick and Noah Wardrip-Fruin (2003). “New Media Reader”, MIT Press
Nelson, Ted (1965) “Computer Lib / Dream Machines” from The New Media Reader, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin
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