Category Archives: Software as a service

Dynamics AX, ERP, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Saas, Software as a service

Microsoft moves Dynamics AX into the cloud

MicrosoftMicrosoft says the latest incarnation of Dynamics AX will mark its transformation from a packaged application to a cloud service.

On Thursday the vendor announced the latest release of its flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) system will be generally available in the first quarter of 2016. The main difference, it said, is that the ERP is now a service designed for the cloud.

A public preview of the new solution for customers and partners will be available in early December. The new name of the release, Microsoft Dynamics AX, reflects a departure from branding that reflected the year or the version of the product, a characteristic of software packages, it said. From now on the branding will underscore that Dynamics AX is a cloud-based service that will be regularly updated, it said.

Microsoft said it will also implement a new, simple and more transparent subscription pricing model to make it easier for companies to buy the system as they need it. Dynamics AX will offer a new user experience that looks and works like Microsoft Office and shares information between Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM and Office 365, according to the vendor. It will also combine near-real-time analytics powered by Azure Machine Learning with the ability to visualise data through Power BI embedded in the application, in order to give users more predictive powers.

In response to usability analysis, Dynamics AX will have a browser-based HTML5 client and a new touch-enabled, modern user interface. Now that it’s a cloud system it will adopt the principles of highly visual applications more akin to consumer applications, according to Microsoft.

The classic rigidity of ERP systems has been replaced, according to Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise’s executive VP. “Our ambition to build the intelligent cloud comes to life with apps optimised for modern business. When you combine the hyperscale, enterprise-grade and hybrid-cloud capabilities of Microsoft Azure with the real-time insights and intuitive user experience of Dynamics AX, organisations and individuals are empowered to transform their business operations,” said Guthrie.

Gemalto, News & Analysis, Research, software, Software as a service

Software market frustrating for enterprise users says Gemalto research

Software licensing is still causing enterprises grief, according to new research by security firm Gemalto. The biggest pain points and causes of frustration are the inflexibility of licensing arrangements and the unhelpful delivery options.

According to the State of Software Monetization report, software vendors must change if they’re to satisfy enterprise user demand. This means delivering software as a service and making it accessible across multiple devices, it concludes.

The disparity between customer demand and vendor supply has been created by the shift in tastes from enterprise software customers. This is a function of the ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) phenomenon, which has been partly created by intelligent device manufacturers and mobile phone makers. However, despite creating the demand for more flexibility they have not been able to follow suit and provide a matchingly flexible and adaptable licensing and packaging technique for software, the report says.

The most frequently voiced complaint, from 87% of the survey sample, was about the cost of renewing and managing licenses. Almost as many (83%) complained about the time needlessly wasted on unfriendly processes for renewing and managing licenses (83%) and the time and costs that were lost to non-product-related development (82%). Most of the survey sample (68%) said they had little idea over how the products they buy are being used in the enterprise.

Four out of five respondents believe that software needs to be future-proofed to be successful.

The report was compiled from feedback from 600 enterprise software users and 180 independent software vendors (ISVs), in relation to headaches related to software licensing and packaging.

Software consumption is changing and customers only want to pay for what they use, according to Shlomo Weiss, Senior VP for Software Monetization at Gemalto. “Delivering software, in ways that customers want to consume it, is critical for creating a user experience that sells,” said Weiss.

Akamai, cloud applications. VPN, News & Analysis, Orange Business Services, Software as a service

Orange Business Services and Akamai offer 10x faster cloud access

Cloud computingOrange Business Services (OBS) and content delivery specialist Akamai claim they have worked out a way to give enterprise clients up to 10 times faster access to business critical cloud applications.

The new Business VPN Internet Accelerate service, available from OBS, was created using Akamai’s Cloud Networking technology. It optimizes software as a service (SaaS) access so that users don’t have to wait for cloud-based applications, dashboards and documents to open and save.

This, says OBS, will make their customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and business intelligence activities more potent and productive. The performance improvement is made by tweaking the transport mechanism across the OBS virtual private networks that extend, via an IPSec tunnel, to branch offices in enterprises.

OBS said it improves the cloud user experience through five customer support centres and eight CyberSecurity Operations Centres where it analyses network traffic, constantly configures service levels and monitors security. The Orange business-grade Internet service relies on the global Akamai Intelligent Platform, a content delivery accelerator which has 200,000 servers in 110 countries to localize material. It uses Orange’s global private network of mobile, satellite and wireline access links.

Orange is currently running pilots of Business VPN Internet Accelerate with a number of enterprises. The service is scheduled to be globally available in early 2016.

Getting networks fit for a cloud future with business grade connectivity is vital, said Pierre-Louis Biaggi, OBS’s VP of Connectivity Solutions. “Business VPN Internet Accelerate allows enterprises to embrace global hybrid networks and the Internet,” said Biaggi.

The claim for ten times faster access speeds was based on the results of an Orange Proof-of-Concept between Paris and Singapore. The vendor did not disclose what system was used as a benchmark on which the ten-fold improvement was made.

Big Data, Content & Applications, Devcon Construction, Egnyte, News & Analysis, Software as a service

New Egnyte service promises to impose strict version in the cloud

AppsCloud file service provider Egnyte has launched a Smart Reporting and Auditing service which promises to impose order on the way content is created, edited, viewed and shared.

The service is currently exclusive to Egnyte customers who want visibility and control over their organisation’s entire content life-cycle, whether files are in-house or in the cloud. The rationale is to help companies stop wasting money on the multiplication of effort involved when multiple versions of the same file exist across the diaspora of in-house systems, private and public clouds.

The promised returns on investment in these cloud services, the company says, are lower costs, less risk and higher productivity through visibility. Cost savings are promised on reducing bandwidth consumption, minimised support issues and less wasted employee time. Risk will be minimised, according to Egnyte, as fewer files will be leaked out of the organisation and suspicious activities – both internally and externally – can be highlighted. Visibility improvements will boost productivity by speeding the progress of projects and the prevention of unchecked document replication and mutation, which leads to multiple teams working on multiple different versions of the same project.

Companies and vendors have still not cracked version control yet, said one analyst, and the cloud will only make the task more complicated.

“Content is at the core of just about every business process today, but users are accessing files across multiple devices, anywhere, any time,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “It is entirely too costly and there is simply too much data.”

Solving the big data analytics problem will be increasingly important, said McClure.

Devcon Construction, the largest general contractor in Silicon Valley, has used the service on trial to track confidential design plans and blueprints. “It gives complete visibility on how the files are shared and accessed, so we can effectively manage desktop and tablet device workflows out in the field,” said Joe Tan, director of IT at Devcon Construction.

The cloud service now makes detailed file analytics and insights possible, claimed Isabelle Guis, chief strategy officer at Egnyte. “It’s critical for businesses to optimise file infrastructure and protect against potential threats,” she said.

BYOA, Identity management, M&A, News & Analysis, Software as a service

LogMeIn acquires LastPass for $125 million to create remote access giant

Remote working SaaS company LogMeIn will acquire password management service provider LastPass for $125 million to bolster its position in identity and access management.

LogMeIn already has a strong position in cloud-based remote login and LastPass is best known as a password manager with an emphasis on enterprise, so it’s easy to see how the two product portfolios complement each other. The combined companies will be in a position to offer a wide range of remote access tools and services.

“LastPass has a great business, a beloved and award winning product, millions of loyal users, and thousands of great business customers – they are synonymous with the category,” said Michael Simon, LogMeIn’s Chairman and CEO. “We believe this transaction instantly gives us a market leading position in password management, while also providing a highly favourable foundation for delivering the next generation of identity and access management solutions to individuals, teams and companies.”

“LogMeIn and LastPass share a great common vision on reshaping identity and access management in ways that not only increase productivity but also improve security for individuals and companies, alike,” said Joe Siegrist, CEO of LastPass. “The striking commonality between our businesses, our products, and cultural DNA make this a great fit for both teams, and we believe a great win for our customers.”

In the rationale behind the move there was much talk of BYOA (bring your own app), which LogMeIn has identified as a key trend. Essentially this means remote workers using whatever tools they see fit and IT managers having to work out how to accommodate them – much as has happened with BYOD (bring your own device). LogMeIn’s strategy is to be the default BYOA enabler.

Amazon, AWS, Database, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, re:invent, Software as a service

Amazon Web Services makes aggressive customer acquisition play

Amazon reinvent 2015At its Amazon re:Invent event Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a number of products and initiatives designed to make it easier for potential customers to move their business to the AWS Cloud.

AWS Snowball is a portable storage appliance designed to be an alternative to trying to upload data over networks, claiming to be able to move 100 TB of data to AWS in less than a week. Amazon is betting that companies are neither willing to prioritise their existing bandwidth, nor devote the time to do this over the network. In addition the company launched Amazon Kinesis Firehose, which is designed to make it easier to upload wireless streaming data to the AWS cloud.

“It has never been easier or more cost-effective for companies to collect, store, analyze, and share data than it is today with the AWS Cloud,” said Bill Vass, VP of AWS Storage Services. “As customers have realized that their data contains key insights that can lead to competitive advantage, they’re looking to get as much data into AWS as quickly as possible. AWS Snowball and Amazon Kinesis Firehose give customers two more important tools to get their data into AWS.”

On top of these new products Amazon announced two new database services – AWS Database Migration Service and Amazon RDS for MariaDB – designed to make it easier for enterprises to bring their production databases to AWS, which seems to take aim at Oracle customers especially.

“With more than a hundred thousand active customers, and six database engines from which to choose, Amazon RDS has become the new normal for running relational databases in the cloud,” said Hal Berenson, VP of Relational Database Services, AWS. “With the AWS Database Migration Service, and its associated Schema Conversion Tool, customers can choose either to move the same database engine from on-premises to AWS, or change from one of the proprietary engines they’re running on-premises to one of the several open source engines available in Amazon RDS.”

Continuing the theme of taking on the big enterprise IT incumbents Amazon launched QuickSight, a cloud business intelligence service that would appear to compete directly with the likes of IBM, while aiming to undercut them with a low-price as-a-service model.

“After several years of development, we’re excited to bring Amazon QuickSight to our customers – a fast and easy-to-use BI service that addresses these needs at an affordable price,” said Raju Gulabani, VP of Database Services at AWS. “At the heart of Amazon QuickSight is the brand new SPICE in-memory calculation engine, which uses the power of the AWS Cloud to make queries run lightning fast on large datasets. We’re looking forward to our customers and partners being able to SPICE up their analytics.”

Lastly Amazon announced a new business group in partnership with Accenture that is also designed to make it easier for companies to move their business to the cloud. The Accenture AWS Business Group is a joint effort between the two and is another example of Accenture putting the cloud at the centre of its strategy.

“Accenture is already a market leader in cloud and the formation of the Accenture AWS Business Group is a key part of our Accenture Cloud First agenda,” said Omar Abbosh, Chief Strategy Officer of Accenture. “Cloud is increasingly becoming a starting point with our clients for their enterprise solutions. Whether our clients need to innovate faster, create new services, or maximize value from their investments, the Accenture AWS Business Group will help them get there faster, with lower risk and with solutions optimized for AWS.”

Amazon Web Services, AWS, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, Rackspace, Software as a service

Rackspace ups AWS functionality and support, becomes authorised reseller

AWSManaged hosting provider Rackspace has announced a ramped up suite of products featuring enhanced support and functionality with Amazon Web Services.

The agreement with AWS, announced at re:Invent in Las Vegas this week, will see Rackspace launch managed service offerings including tools, expertise, application management and operational support for AWS Cloud. “Fanatical Support for AWS” is the core service offering featured as part of the agreement, with three beta offerings supplementing the managed service – Managed Security for AWS, Compliance Assistance for AWS and Managed Cloud for Adobe Experience Manager.

Through Fanatical Support, Rackspace tells its customers to “leave the heavy lifting to us” as it claims to take care of migration, architecture, security and operations for companies looking to adopt AWS for application hosting.

Rackspace has also become an authorised reseller at AWS, as well as a managed services partner, and has joined the AWS Partner Network. CEO Taylor Rhodes spoke about the announcement on the company’s blog page.

“Over the past year, more and more of them [customers] have told us that they love Rackspace expertise and Fanatical Support, and would like to get it for the workloads that they prefer to run on AWS,” he said. “We have spent the past several months working with those customers and with AWS, to create the best managed-service offering on that platform.”

Rhodes went on to say that AWS adds to Rackspace’s existing commitment to support a number of other platforms.

“We help businesses tap the power of the cloud without the pain and expense of managing it all themselves,” he said. “We have gone deep on support for platforms such as OpenStack, Microsoft and VMware. Our success in leading the managed cloud market for those technologies has been validated by industry experts such as Gartner, and most importantly, by our 300,000-plus business customers.”

Finally, Rhodes then highlighted how Fanatical Support has evolved with today’s announcements, and how it will benefit various customer segments.  He claims it will appeal to businesses that have desired AWS integration with existing Fanatical Support functionality; for rapidly growing businesses needing to outsource some IT functionality in order to reallocate technical resource to other areas; and for customers new to both AWS and Rackspace.

Meanwhile, AWS’s VP of worldwide partner ecosystem Terry Wise, welcomed Rackspace’s increased integration and functionality of AWS.

“We’re pleased to see Rackspace support AWS customers and achieve membership in the AWS Managed Service Program,” he said. “A growing number of businesses who want the benefit of the AWS Cloud will find value in working with AWS Managed Service Partners like Rackspace. We have been impressed with Rackspace’s commitment to include beta customers in their AWS managed services offerings, along with certifying a large number of their technical staff.”

CloudSense, CRM, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, Ziggo

Ziggo appoints CloudSense to boost its Salesforce

Money cloudPrice quote service provider CloudSense has been anointed by Dutch cableco Ziggo to boost sales using the Cloudsense Telecoms Platform.

The CloudSense systems integrate with Salesforce’s customer relationship management service to improve the effectiveness of company sales teams. The cloud based service helps employees to configure, price and quote products and services from simple sales of broadband to more sophisticated TV bundles and subscriptions.

In a competitive selection process CloudSense promised Ziggo higher order values, fewer order errors, more automation of sales processes and quicker product launches. CloudSense created a telecoms-specific Configure Price Quote (CPQ) and customer order management, according to Dave Loerts, Director Sales SMB at Ziggo. This means Ziggo can improve both the sales cycle and the customer experience. “We were impressed that CloudSense could offer CPQ across every sales channel,” said Loerts.

One of the deciding factors in the sale was that CloudSense has created a contingency plan for working when no network is available. “Being able to configure, price, quote and contract on an iPad offline means the team are always able to sell more effectively,” said Loerts.

The CloudSense Telecoms Platform brings together the sale and provisioning of the entire range of a mobile telcos’ or communications services provider’s products and services across every sales channel. It then integrates them and provides a single view of the full transactional lifecycle natively on Salesforce. By editing and simplifying the presentation of information, and prioritising the most crucial deal making intelligence, it saves time and speeds up the sales life cycle, CloudSense claims.

Faster quotes lead to more sales, which then creates more opportunities for cross-selling and upselling, according to CloudSense CEO Richard Britton.

“Many companies today are faced with challenges when it comes to selling on-site and over the phone, and CloudSense can have a significant impact on a company’s drive to grow its market share,” said Britton.

Azure, Datacentre, Equinix, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 365, News & Analysis, Software as a service, TelecityGroup

Equinix and Telecity to offer Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365

datacentre cloudData centre operators Equinix and TelecityGroup are both now offering Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 as part of their cloud offerings. Microsoft is understood to be announcing as many as five such partnerships with data centre operators.

Co-location specialist TelecityGroup said it is offering the cloud service to three distinct types of customer, these being enterprise customers, co-location partners and a reseller channel. The reseller channel itself is broken down three groups of telcos, managed service providers and systems integrators.

The nature of the market for Office 365 is broadening, according to Adi Ayyagani, the group head of market development for TelecityGroup. “Once interest was restricted to financial services and a couple of other early adopters, but now enterprises from every vertical market are showing an interest.”

TelecityGroup is offering the Office365 service on its software defined networking Cloud-IX platform. Though a number of operators are reportedly making ExpressRoute for Office 365 available, Ayyagani claimed that the Level 3 MPLS network that underpins Cloud-IX will make all the difference. “It means customers can get the service from anywhere, it’s more robust and there’s a greater level of integration available, so that configuration of the service is a lot simpler for service providers,” said Ayyagani.

The managed service providers, telcos and systems integrators reselling the cloud service will be able to use TelecityGroup’s broad footprint to access almost any market in Europe, the Middle East or African, said Ayyagani.

Meanwhile, global data centre operator Equinix has now announced worldwide availability of the cloud version of Microsoft Office for enterprises. The service improves the levels of data privacy since ExpressRoute enables most Office 365 network traffic to avoid the public Internet. Enterprises that use ExpressRoute in an Equinix data centre also get the benefit of being able to run hybrid and multi-cloud services that didn’t previously scale well over the Internet or over typical WAN works, it says.

“Office 365 customers can now benefit from predictable network performance and the ability to better manage network availability,” said Ross Ortega, Microsoft’s Principal Program Manager for Azure Networking.

Content & Applications, Microsoft, News & Analysis, office 2016, Office 365, Software as a service

Microsoft releases Office 2016 for ‘mobile-first, cloud-first world’

Microsoft Office 2016 devices croppedMicrosoft has promised to ‘re-invent productivity and business processes’ for the mobile and cloud-first world, with its new Office 2016 for Windows. It has also unveiled new additions to Office 365 and made Office 2016 for Mac available as a one-time purchase.

The latest version of Office is designed to make optimal use of Windows 10, with better collaboration and tighter security. The productivity applications within the suite have been updated to make them more cloud friendly, with changes to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Project and Visio to make them more collaborative in nature, according to Microsoft.

One reported change is that groups of employees can now work on a single Word document and view each other’s comments as they are written. The new system now includes Skype for Business so that users of any new Office app can chat, screen share or video chat directly from their documents. Another new feature, enabled by Skype integration, is the ability to simultaneously co-author documents. In October Skype will be available on Office Online, according to Microsoft.

“The way people work has changed dramatically, and that’s why Microsoft is focused on reinventing productivity and business processes for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

These latest changes are a ‘big step’ in transforming Office from familiar but individual productivity tools to a connected set of apps and service designed for collaboration and teamwork, according to Nadella.

The security protection for business customers has been beefed up, according to Microsoft, with built-in data loss prevention features designed to cuts the risk of data leaks. New multi-factor authentication will secure the access of those outside the corporate network. Enterprise Data Protection, promised ‘later this year’ will help business to secure the process of sharing corporate content across application and cloud locations.

The delivery of future Office desktop application updates is to change, says Microsoft, so that Office 365 subscribers receive new features and capabilities continuously.

Other new tools include an analytics from Office Delve, a personal work analytics (Delve) and additional charts and formulas for Excel.

“The Office 2016 apps run beautifully on the best Windows ever,” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft’s corporate VP for the Office Client Applications and Services. “The Office 2016 apps simplify collaboration and remove barriers to team success.”