Tag: service provider

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Confusing Value Propositions: Cloud Platforms and Hosted Applications

it-balancing-actConfusing Value Propositions: Cloud Platforms and  Hosted Applications

When a service provider is in the business of selling computing resources – like bandwidth, processors and memory, and disk storage – it makes a lot of sense to also leverage the value of software products and systems which drive consumption of computing resources.  In short, they market and sell software that runs on the platform in order to get folks to buy the platform, no different from selling desktop and server software in order to sell the hardware to run it.  It’s just that these days the hardware and networking components are often referred to as the “platform” or maybe “the cloud”.

Let’s face it… cloud computing platforms are just no fun if there’s nothing to run on them, and a hard drive has little value when there isn’t anything stored on it.  Once there is something there – an application, data… something – then the part has actual value in terms of driving revenue.  This is the difficulty and the basis for confusing value propositions when it comes to offering and delivering services in the form of a hosting platform.  Once again: platforms are just no fun if there’s nothing to run on them.  Is the value is really about the applications, not the platform? Or is the value in the platform, because it’s necessary for running the applications?

The truth is that both are essential parts of the entire “solution”, and the value of how the solution is packaged and offered is purely up to the purchaser to determine in terms of applicability to the business.  When it comes to hosted application offerings for businesses, there isn’t a single one-size-fits-all approach that will work.  Sometimes people want to purchase from different vendors and put their own solutions together, and sometimes folks want turnkey delivery of whatever they need.  Even channel partners and value-added resellers are finding that, with diminishing margins and aggressive competition prevalent in the market, removing the time-consuming aspects of solution delivery becomes paramount to achieving some level of profitability on the work.

What this means is that providers are looking for ways to increase the overall value and usability of their solutions, and when it comes to platform services there are only two directions to look: automation to support self-service, and application software delivery to drive consumption and usage on the hosting platform.

So now we’re back to the applications again.  There’s no way to avoid them, but there’s no great way for platform companies to engage with them, either.  Working with business application software is sometimes complicated, often annoying, and can be exceptionally time-consuming and resource intensive. And there are few licensing models which make it really easy for hosts and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) to work together.  Then, of course, there is the desire for exclusivity on one side or the other.

Software companies don’t generally want to select a single platform provider for their software for a very simple reason: they don’t want to limit their potential user base.  Now that Windows platform is available just about anywhere – on local computers, on mobile devices, from platform and infrastructure hosting providers – how does the ISV make a decision on a single delivery channel or model or provider?

Some lean towards working with hosting providers to create branded, point-deliveries of the application.  Too often, however, this approach removes the ability for customers to benefit from other applications or integrations, eliminating some of the value of the solution and certainly curtailing benefits for integrating partners of the ISV.

Host it themselves?  The last thing most software developers want is to be responsible for hosting and maintaining some other guys’ software products; they have enough to worry about with their own offerings.  If the solution is standalone, maybe this approach works.  But there are few solutions made for the desktop which don’t have some strange integration point with MS Office apps, Adobe reader, Internet browsers or other things prevalent on the user desktop.

There isn’t any proven or easy path for software developers, IT suppliers or small business customers looking to create mobility and managed subscription service around desktop and server applications, and there is likely never going to be a single story line that all will follow.  This is among the reasons for the popularity of the “hybrid” cloud approach and growing importance of managed application hosting and ISV-authorized delivery models.  Yet even key providers in those areas have a tough time really communicating what they do in a way that is meaningful to the buyer.  Are they selling a platform, applications, or both? Folks in the industry know the jargon and how to use it, and are often skilled at adjusting their language in order to obfuscate or confuse certain sticky issues regarding software licensing in the cloud and other similar aspects of hosting.  It’s no wonder that many customers remain confused as to what, exactly, they’re being asked to buy, and where the lines of flexibility and responsibility are drawn.

The applications justify the platform, and there are possibly multiple platform approaches to delivering the app. It is a confusing situation for business buyers of IT as well as for their resellers and suppliers, and the increasing number of options for how businesses approach purchasing and using information technology makes it unlikely that the process will become as simple as some suggest.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

There is a lot of activity and interest around the hosting of desktop applications in the cloud, and it is no wonder that a great deal of the effort centers on the use of Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions.  QuickBooks is among the most popular software products used by small businesses, so it makes sense that service providers and hosting companies are taking advantage of that market share to reach prospective hosting customers.  After all, a hosting platform may be kind of neat, but it is not all that valuable unless there are applications and data living on it.

For the average small business, the applications of choice include Microsoft Office and QuickBooks.  Yes, there is an online edition of the QuickBooks product (called QuickBooks Online, of course).  However, the market share Intuit earned for QuickBooks wasn’t accomplished with an online application, it was done with the desktop applications which still own market share today.  Hosting service providers recognize this truth, and are taking steps to bring those QuickBooks desktop solutions into the cloud.  Now we have the ability to get QuickBooks Desktop editions online – which is not the name of a service but a description of what it offers – available from a variety of authorized hosting providers (and from many unauthorized ones).

I’ve said before that there is a fine art to hosting QuickBooks desktop for lots of users.  There are a great many different considerations and possible use cases, and not all providers will be able to meet every requirement.  There are also lots of different technology models and methodologies which may be applied to the hosting model, and each has some benefit or barrier depending on the specific need of the client.  Hosting companies may throw around terms like “cloud server” or “published application” or “remote desktop”, but at the end of the day, the systems are still Windows computers running QuickBooks software.  How those systems are wrapped up, how you connect to them, and how you operate with them often becomes the real difference in the service experience.

The specific technology a hosting provider applies to the service does not necessarily describe exactly how the service works.  Just because a provider may use Citrix doesn’t mean they have more capability to provide quality service than a provider using other technologies, or a host using VMWare is not necessarily creating better cloud servers than a host using Hyper-V or Parallels or some other virtualization strategy.  The technology may impact how the infrastructure is operated and can impress upon the customer experience, but the real differences in delivery often come down to the provider’s understanding of the software product, the customer need, and their ability to meet the need directly.

Does the experience of connecting to and using the service work for the users, and are people able to get their jobs done quickly using the service without a lot of support or frustration?  (**Please note that hosting services aren’t a solution for bad software and poor working processes.  If the software or processes aren’t workable now, they’re likely not going to become magically more workable if hosted).  Does the hosting service address issues like making the right data available to only the users who need it, and giving access to applications only when a user is permitted to use them?  What about “external” users like contractors or client businesses… does the host offer a way for them to also participate in the solution?

It’s important to consider all of the aspects of how the service will be used, and by whom and under what circumstances, to ensure that the delivery offered is the solution needed. The point of all this is to encourage users to concern themselves a little less with exactly what technology the host is using to deliver QuickBooks applications, and to evaluate the actual solution.  It won’t typically matter to an end-user what specific technology is being used to provide them with service as long as the service works well for them.

While some people do adopt a fondness for a particular “flavor” of technology or approach, the reality is that a quality user experience coupled with a useful and reliable system means much more to the business.  And knowing that there are future options for growing, expanding or simply changing the service is essential.  It’s not so much the flavor of technology users should be concerned with when shopping for QuickBooks hosting services, it’s avoiding that icky aftertaste that comes with selecting a QuickBooks hosting approach that just doesn’t meet the business need.

Make sense?

J

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Easy deployment in the cloud: What about users and applications?

Easy deployment in the cloud: What about users and applications?

cloudpagingBusinesses are migrating their systems to the cloud, it’s true.  Organizations of every size and type are taking advantage of the cost savings and flexibility introduced with cloud deployments and hosting services.  Rather than focusing efforts on procuring, installing and maintaining servers and applications in-house, IT departments are moving workloads offsite to cloud providers and hosted platforms.  The tools are readily available to help these IT workers configure and light up VMs in hosted infrastructure, and certain platform licenses and other elements are made accessible to customers.  But there’s something missing in the toolsets provided by platform hosting companies – a certain something that ultimately determines how useful (or not) the hosting platform service is when IT is ready to deploy users and applications in the environment.

Conceptually, hosting services are supposed to provide a centralized management and administrative capability for an organization.  While this is true in the context that most of the system and resources are assembled inside the datacenter, proximity alone doesn’t make things easier to manage.  In fact, some virtualization and delivery models can exacerbate issues that IT at least had a known way of dealing with when it was in-house.

Consider that, even in hosted and virtualized infrastructure, everything that needed to be done to build the in-house network still has to be done – only now it involves the on-premises computers (sometimes with client software still requiring installation and management), the local LAN, the Internet, the datacenter facility and network, and computers and software in the datacenter.  Most of the complexity may reside in the datacenter with the hosted systems, but even that scenario isn’t necessarily plug-n-play.  IT must still bring up the servers, and then the fun begins.  Fun, in this case, means setting up policies and permissions, users, and applications.  The unfortunate thing is that there are few tools being made available which directly and specifically address this requirement for customers in hosted infrastructure.  Hosted customers are still burdened with the requirement to not only establish and manage their permissions and user accounts – they also have to still install, update and maintain application software in the environment.

Most IT teams recognize that installing an application once is way better than having to install it a bunch of times, so there is a tendency to lean towards hosting models where a single (or few) machines service desktop and application sessions for lots of users.  Reducing the number of actual application installations, this approach (such as with terminal services) can make software implementations go a bit easier than if the app had to be installed across a lot of machines.  On the other hand, there is a fine art to implementing some applications in terminal server environments, and not all apps behave well in the delivery model.  Many engineering hours have been spent trying to get user apps working on terminal servers – sometimes much more time than if the application were simply installed to multiple PCs.  On an ongoing basis, technicians fight with applications and broken functionality, wishing the entire time that they could bypass the terminal services issue and get back to working with individual machines and app installs.  At least they knew the apps would work.

Companies determining that a VDI or DaaS solution would more directly mirror the individualized PC approach quickly find that managing and maintain the working user environment, including the variety of applications and functionality demanded by entry-level and power users alike, is just as complicated and time-consuming as it was when they were managing individual user PCs.  And, lacking quality software distribution and lifecycle management tools in the platform, find that template-based VM imaging doesn’t go far enough in terms of easing the burdens of installing, updating and maintaining applications on a user machine, whether it’s the local PC or a managed VM.

The truth about many cloud solution offerings and hosting platforms is that they are often oriented towards the enterprise customer and IT department, expecting that the customer has the skills and capability required to do the right things in deploying the hosted solution for the company.  Leaving all of the time-consuming aspects of service management and delivery to the customer – the parts of the delivery which address the actual users, desktops and applications – simply shifts the location of work for IT, but not necessarily the nature of the work.   They’re still going to spend a bunch of time not just setting up groups and users and applications; they’re going to spend a bunch of time managing and maintaining them, just like they always have.

There should be smart solutions to these problems – tools which could be made available to customers having a desire to deploy their operations in hosted infrastructure and that deliver the automation and ease of management which enables IT to realize gains through process efficiencies at all levels of the deployment.  The heavy lifting isn’t buried in the building of a server.  The heavy lifting – the grunt detail work that nobody really wants to deal with – exists around groups, users and applications.  Get some truly useful automation tools in those areas, and hosting becomes even more viable and beneficial for value added resellers, IT departments, and their users.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Licensing the Cloud: Software Distribution and Use in a Remote Access World

Licensing the Cloud: Software Distribution and Use in a Remote Access World

Whether we like it or not, and whether we agree or not – software developers have a right to decide how and where their licensed products are run.  There have always been arguments in this area, where software license purchasers take the position that they should be able to do what they want with their licenses, and where commercial software developers believe they have the rights to dictate authorized usage.  Truly, when it comes down to the legalities of it all, the software companies will win because they have the legal footing to fall back on  – the EULA containing use rights and terms which licensed users have agreed to.

The problem has been ongoing, with software developers constantly and consistently seeking methods to reduce unauthorized software distribution and unsupported use, and users spending amazing amounts of time and resources finding ways to break the rule.  Copy protection, “phone home” license validation models and all sorts of approaches have been developed to prevent software theft and unauthorized distribution.  But it happens anyway – a lot – and the cloud is turning into a great facilitator.  Surprisingly, it’s an “in your face” approach, too, where the previous iteration of web-enabled software theft (unauthorized digital downloads and license cracking) was fairly quiet and tried to be secretive to stay out of the gun sights of the developer.  Today’s “flavor” is right out there, being marketed to any and all who care to view the ads.

With businesses more frequently turning to “cloud” server providers to run business applications, it is no wonder that the IaaS and PaaS companies would want to make their services easier and more valuable to acquire than the next guy’s.  Aside from a groovy control panel and great networking and VM pricing, the added value from these providers is in the applications they are able to service.  More frequently, hosting service providers are marketing their solutions in the context of the applications customers run on the service (which makes sense, because the application’s what really matters).  Leveraging the brand value and recognition of popular commercial software products makes sense, as it improves overall visibility and increases the potential of the “right” kind of prospect engaging and becoming a customer.

The problem arises when these service providers sell hosting services for, or which support, applications they are not authorized or licensed to deliver, and this is where the argument comes full circle.  The hosting provider wants to host applications customers use, customers have licenses for those applications, but not a right to have them hosted.  The host deploys the application anyway, because that’s what the customer wants.  “What’s the risk?” they ask… “the customer has the software license”.

The risk is, unfortunately, greater for the service provider than for the customer.  Even if the customer has a license for the software product, that license may not actually be eligible to run on a hosted server.  “Businesses lease computer equipment all the time, and they can run the software on those systems” is the next argument generally offered by the service provider.  But, in the eyes of the software developer, there may be a big difference between leased equipment run in-house versus subscribed platform services deployed via a commercial hosting provider.  Even Microsoft recognizes the benefit and value of providing “mobility” of application licensing, and has specific licensing models to allow commercial hosts to deploy customer-owned licenses.  While many service providers understand and recognize the requirements to ensure that customer applications are properly licensed for hosted delivery, there are a great many who think the rules simply do not apply to them.  These folks are introducing a great deal of risk into their hosting businesses, even if they are not willing to recognize it.

When a customer runs their software in an unauthorized manner, they risk losing the rights and benefits associated with their software license.  When a commercial hosting company runs software on their servers that they have no right to install and run… they are potentially guilty of unauthorized software distribution and copyright theft.

Actions against facilitators of unauthorized content distribution – you can equate “software” with “content” – have received much press in past months, yet much of the discussion centers on music and video content (as in the Megaupload story).  Actions involving commercial software products tend to be somewhat less visible, probably due to reluctance by commercial developers to have what could be perceived as negative press flowing through social media venues.  It’s popular to protect music and videos, but hosting providers aren’t seeing the wisdom of preserving the integrity of a commercial software product license.  Instead, they’re relying on the customer to indemnify them (the customer has a license, remember?).   But the customer can’t protect the host; the host must protect the host – it’s the prudent business approach.

Infrastructure providers, platform providers and businesses operating as application hosting companies should pay close attention to the content living on their servers.  Taking a position that the customer has the right to do whatever they want with the system is not a viable position; the precedent has been set that the hosting provider is responsible for the content on their systems.  In the case of hosts offering service for small business applications like Microsoft Office and Intuit QuickBooks, for example, it is essential that a service model which conforms to and supports proper license usage be in place, and that any required authorizations are, too.

Software is just another form of content, and the cloud makes distribution of and access to content a lot easier, even when it shouldn’t be.

Make sense?

J

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Hosted QuickBooks and Office 365 a Complicated Technical and Licensing Model (until now)

When Intuit acknowledged the ability for companies to host QuickBooks desktop editions, service providers were presented with the opportunity to offer hosting for the QuickBooks desktop editions from their host servers and infrastructure.  The benefits of using QuickBooks desktop products in a hosted environment are many, including the introduction of mobility, disaster recovery, remote access and other things now associated with cloud computing models.  But the evolution of application delivery technologies and software as subscription service models is challenging the “traditional” approaches used to deliver hosted QuickBooks services.  One of the greatest challenges facing these QuickBooks hosts is the changing landscape of Microsoft Office licensing, because QuickBooks is just no fun without Microsoft Office.

While the QuickBooks application handles a variety of essential business functions, it relies upon other software to accomplish certain important tasks, such as reporting.  Most of the QuickBooks reports can be exported to Excel worksheets, allowing users to refine and manipulate the document outside of QB;   QuickBooks Enterprise Edition uses Excel to handle consolidated reporting.  QuickBooks uses Word for writing customer letters, and Outlook as a tool to email invoices.  There is a lot of functionality in QuickBooks that relies on the MS Office products, so it is pretty typical for a QuickBooks user to also be an Office apps user.  In order for the applications to work together properly, they need to be installed on the same computer.  If QuickBooks is hosted “in the cloud” with a hosting provider, and Office 365 applications are installed on the local PC, the two applications don’t “talk”, and the integration isn’t seamless or even functional.

image credit: Microsoft Corp | Microsoft.com

When a small business subscribes to Office 365 (or Microsoft 365 now), they are provided with rights to install their Office applications on their devices (depending on the subscription level).  While this enables users to have Office apps on multiple computers they use at different times, it does not provide authorization for the application to be installed on a hosted server where it is accessed by those users.

What this means is that customers who purchase Office 365/Microsoft 365 subscriptions to get their MS Office productivity applications can’t generally use those licenses in a hosted environment.

But there is an answer for small businesses who want remote and mobile access to their QuickBooks desktop editions and who also have Office 365 application licenses. The answer is to deploy QuickBooks desktop on a Microsoft Azure cloud server. This solution allows users to run their QuickBooks software as well as their qualifying Microsoft Office (M365 Apps for Enterprise) licenses on the Azure cloud server. The cloud platform enables the anytime/anywhere access desired and keeps all the applications and data secure and available for those who need access.

There is almost never just one way to solve a problem, and the cloud is introducing new options – and challenges – at all levels.  As application licensing and delivery models continue to change, solution providers will come to recognize the value they provide in bringing the right selection of services and technology models together to benefit not just their customers, but their own revenue streams and profit potential.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J

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Cloud IT: Hiding Complexity and Risk

jmbunnyfeet

Cloud IT: Hiding Complexity and Risk

Cloud computing and Internet technologies have delivered previously unimagined capability for even the smallest of businesses – capability to compete, build brand recognition, and reach markets in remote geographies.  The mantra for businesses used to be “location, location, location”, but it’s become connectivity – perhaps even more than location – which now delivers business opportunity.  As technology has evolved, allowing businesses and consumers to connect regardless of time or place, the complexity of the systems and networks have also increased dramatically.  Where a business could once easily identify their various vendors or business service providers, the identification of those involved in the service ‘delivery chain’ are no longer so easily recognized.   Among the benefits of cloud computing technologies is the ability to reach beyond traditional boundaries.  The risk for many businesses is in not fully understanding how, and with whom, those boundaries are being crossed.

For many an enterprise, the convenience and efficiency introduced with cloud computing models overshadows the increased risk potential.  Service level agreements and vendor contracts are assumed to be sufficient to protect the business and its information assets, yet recent events (such as the recent reveals of PRISM and the actions of the National Security Agency) should cause businesses to look a little deeper at their entire provider network.  It’s not that the average business should be concerned about government snooping of their emails, but they should be aware of who has access to their systems and data, and which entities are responsible for which parts of the system.  It’s only prudent to know the details, and it is the best first step to mitigate business risk.

Enterprise Clouds are complex, sophisticated entities which invariably rely on a daisy-chain of third parties and contractors to help build, run and maintain their Cloud provider’s systems. The organizational and technical complexities are additive, resulting in increased systemic risk. Systemic risk is the least visible and hardest to eliminate, and those risks become real when the providers’ systemic risks become [yours].

The question is, how well does your Cloud provider manage the ecosystem of contractors and third parties that are farther down the food chain? This is even more relevant in the globalized workforce, where, paradoxically, Cloud and related technologies have greatly facilitated the outsourcing and offshoring of work to low-cost countries. http://www3.cfo.com/article/2013/6/data-security_prism-national-security-agency-edward-snowden-cloud-implications-vendor-management

Before executing a service agreement with an outsourced provider, make certain that the details of facility, connectivity, network, equipment, and other elements of the delivery and system are spelled out.  Business subscribers should know where the various points of failure exist, and which company is responsible for dealing with each.  If a carrier fails and connectivity to the data center is lost, the hosting service provider may be powerless to impact the situation, even though access to service is part of the SLA and requirement.  If a hosted software product has a vulnerability or fails to perform, the developer of the product is likely responsible, rather than a hosting service provider.  The point is that there are often multiple players in the delivery chain, and customers should be aware of this reality prior to engaging with the service.

Ultimately, the business with mission critical data in the possession of a 3rd party service provider should have a healthy helping of doubt as to whether the provider has full control over their environment.  Business owners, managers and CFOs should recognize the increased necessity of evaluating risk within their provider systems and in provider/vendor relationships, to keep trade secrets secret and prevent intellectual property from becoming the property of others.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet

Make Sense?

J