SaaS platforms are becoming increasingly attractive to small and midmarket businesses, due to a wide selection of affordable, adaptable, business-relevant apps.
Writing for eCommerce Times, occasional Internet Evolution contributor Jeff Kaplan sees new app marketplaces making business software more readily accessible to SMBs. If Apple, Google, and Amazon are serving the market for consumer apps, these new players are in the B2B app game.
One example of a business-targeted app marketplace is the Staples App Center. The advantages of the approach are obvious. Staples curates a selection of apps from major vendors (Google and McAfee, for example), and makes them available via a single dashboard, with free trials and unified billing. It's a strategy which almost makes IT involvement redundant.
Behind storefronts like Staples are companies which offer the bricks and mortar for building app stores. Among these are AppDirect, which powers Staples, and SaaS Markets. SaaS Markets partners with app storefronts, supplying quality-assured apps, and helping to build and brand the online interface. It allows customers to make side-by-side comparison of apps.
AppDirect offers similar services, and has had success partnering not only with Staples, but with international enterprises like Bell, Deutsche Telekom, and Swisscom.
The app marketplace is a natural fit for hosting companies like the open cloud vendor Rackspace. Rackspace offers tailored cloud computing platforms, and it's a no-brainer to upgrade to one-stop cloud shopping by offering apps -- or "cloud tools" -- for purchase at the same website. After all, enterprises which sell eReaders also sell books.
Are there possible downsides to this trend? Sure. It could make for a narrow and conservative market in business apps, with mainstream products from household-name vendors constituting an obvious selling point for anyone launching an app store. Although AppDirect does solicit products direct from developers, it's possible to imagine the independent app entrepreneur being left out in the cold as centralized app marketplaces gain traction.
Also, as Gartner's Lydia Leong observed in the early days of such marketplaces, the selection of apps offered needs to be comprehensive enough that businesses can't do better just by searching Google and hoping. Well-curated products, together with excellent support, and ease of delivery and payment, are essential components of the successful app marketplace.
The positives, however, outweigh the negatives -- at least as far as the future of cloud computing for smaller organizations is concerned. Business app marketplaces will make life much simpler for any company that simply can't devote a tranche of IT hours to researching and testing suitable apps, let alone individually downloading, supporting, and paying for them.
This looks like the future of SaaS, below the enterprise level at least.
The next logical step, surely, is for AppDirect, or maybe one of their competitors, to achieve sufficient market dominance that they can sign apps exclusively. If you can get the same apps anywhere, where's the business model (apart from good service, support, etc).
@Kim: It really reminds me of the retail middle-man. The main difference is that in retail, it's a combination of best price, customer service and location while for apps it would be best price, customer service and moderation. The problem being that good moderation isn't a lasting competitive advantage as others can just copy one's top picks (and thus leads to stagnation since everyone recommends the same stuff).
I think that is a concern Scott, and certainly should be a concern for independent developers. But for a business with a small IT house, a choice of the best known, well-tested apps, available from one source, might be enough.
I have to wonder if it's too good to be true. Don't get me wrong, I think it's very smart of Staples.
At the same time, I really do think that it will lead to a narrower, more conservative market in business apps. The selling point of the marketplace is to provide low-risk apps -- but will they give new apps a chance, or will they just go with the safest, most conservative selection?
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
Like other leading technology-using businesses, Walmart is starting to look like a vendor in its integration of the latest technologies to serve its customers. That's what led it to buy two Silicon Valley cloud startups this week.
IT executives are worried about business units that use social media, Dropbox, Skype, and other public clouds without working through IT. This "cloud sprawl" creates concerns about security, compliance, and other potential problems for the enterprise, according to a study.
Cloud computing helped Netflix score a big win this week, meeting a thousandfold increase in demand and driving the Internet video service provider back to profitability. It provided Netflix with "availability, scalability, and cost savings," chief executive officer Reed Hastings wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Curious reports this week suggest that HP's blossoming interest in offering converged cloud services puts the PC giant in direct competition with Amazon. That's not how I see it.
Multi-tenant clouds assure security for clients, but not necessarily for their ideas. Here's one thing you should discuss with your cloud provider before you sign on.
Enterprises are discovering that using social networking within the secure setting of a SaaS provider's network gives them an unusual opportunity to freely collaborate with partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
Microsoft's recent decision to bundle its Office software with business partner offerings indicates that cloud software may be in the news, but licensed packages are still in demand for failover.
Apple's numbers show that it may be giving Microsoft an opportunity to gain ground in tablets by failing to cement Mac, iPhone, and iPad lines together with an effective cloud strategy.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
Email This
