Digital Discourse / Archives for Rhianna Collier

Interview with New Member: Argos Software

February 1, 2013 By

SIIA recently welcomed Argos Software to the membership. I had a chance to sit down with their CEO, Lee Anne Mulvehill, to learn more about the company, their solutions, and vision for the next 18 months.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell us a little about Argos Software and what makes your solutions unique.

Lee Anne: From our start in 1979, Argos Software has focused on developing specialized business software for the agri-business, supply chain and logistics industries. In addition, we offer a variety of services that help our customers succeed in their planning, implementation, and on-going training activities.

Rhianna: Why is it important that each implementation be customized for the customer?

Lee Anne: Each implementation is designed around the customer’s requirements as no two businesses are alike! Our network engineers work with our customers to specify their network requirements. We want to be sure that their infrastructure will properly support the software. Then, we conduct an “implementation planning workshop” that will begin to configure the system to meet the customer’s business processes, to train the administrator on the system features of the system, to define the data conversion requirements, and to train the trainer. We work with the customer’s administrator and staff on implementing each of the functional areas. The implementation process is tailored to the customers’ requirements and staff. Our goal is our customers’ success with the right balance of on-site and web training sessions.

Rhianna: You partner with a number of top provides. How important is that partner ecosystem to your business?

Lee Anne: Our partners are critical to our success. Without their development efforts and technical support, our own products cannot grow to meet the ever-changing demands of our user partners. We are reliant on our supply side partners to ensure we can provide a modern and robust infrastructure and foundation for our suite of applications. We rely to a large extent on our user partners to provide the roadmap for our own development efforts. In today’s ‘flat world’, partner ecosystems are vital.

Rhianna: How does Argos keep their customers up-to-date on upgrades and the latest enhancements of your software?

Lee Anne: Our ABECAS Insight Subscription Service provides both on-going support by our technical team as well as updates to the software. A new version of our software is released about every 4 months and is available to all subscribers. The Version number that customers are currently working with can be seen by clicking ‘about’ on the ABECAS Insight menu. When a system is first installed and changes are required in the software during the implementation process, we generally provide our development version so that updates can be installed as needed. Our technical team works with customers all the way!

Rhianna: What do you think will be the next major advancement in supply chain management systems in the next 12-18 months?

Lee Anne: To date, SCMS has focused on operational efficiency, but with an ever increasing demand for visibility, both upstream and downstream, we will see systems to systems communication and visibility tools (and mobility) growing in importance. Summary data provided by dashboards, accessible from mobile computers will be high on the selection criteria for next year’s buyer, as will automation of exception alerts triggered for suppliers and customers.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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All About the Cloud Program Committee: Russell Hertzberg, SoftServe

February 1, 2013 By

I recently sat down with AATC Platinum Sponsor and Program Committee member Russell Hertzberg, Vice President Technology Solutions for SoftServe, Inc. to discuss AATC 2013, their goals for the conference and what we hope to see from the program and our industry in the coming year.


Russell Hertberg
Vice President Technology Solutions, SoftServe

Rhianna:Why was it important to you to be a part of the AATC Program Committee?

Russ: Being a part of the Program Committee helps SoftServe give input into the shape, structure, and content of the event agenda, while staying abreast of the latest developments with respect to the event plan.

Rhianna: What are your goals for the conference this year?

Russ: As always, to get some strong new ISV leads, or to further nurture existing prospects. We do this through networking, speaker presentations, and the sponsorship.

Rhianna: What is unique about AATC that makes it so valuable to ISVs?

Russ: AATC is the premier event for ISVs who are just entering or already leading in various segments of the Cloud Computing market. This event has it all: thought leaders, great panels, practical education, and how to content.

Rhianna: What are some of the topics you are excited to see in the program this year?

Russ: Mobile + cloud monetization strategies, the evolution of PaaS technology, a report card on Azure, and the role that Big Data platforms are playing in various SaaS offerings.

Rhianna: What are your industry predictions for what’s in store for 2013-2014?

Russ: 1. SaaS. Large ISVs are in an adaptive race to both build and buy SaaS capability. In this race, the course of 2013 will show increasing gaps between executing leaders and confused or denying followers. This race is the single most important determinant of the future value of the 100 largest ISV providers. The leaders will not simply make more SaaS acquisitions. They will also create hybrid solutions for current install bases. They will deliver new SaaS offerings in the SMB market by refactoring current on-premises technology. And they will adapt channel, sales and marketing models to the economics of the SaaS business.

2. DevOps. Cloud computing is changing the skill set and composition requirements of technical teams. Designing and developing software is now the front end for the long-run challenge: service delivery management and continuous application enhancement. Development operations (DevOps) are one of the critical disciplines for the new technical team. The skill set of a DevOps tech lead includes systems programming, build management, configurations management, service monitoring, security, backup, recovery and more. Over time, the technical team composition for a large SaaS deployment will trend towards an equal number of software engineers and DevOps engineers.

3. PaaS. PaaS remains a clever software technology for rapid application development or refactoring rather than a specific market. Small PaaS players can survive by deploying their technology primarily to create conventional and nimble SaaS solutions in established markets. PaaS technology will be combined with Big Data platforms to create new services and sites in several business and consumer markets.

4. Health Information Exchanges. The firmer establishment and acceptance of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (“Obamacare”) resulting from the re-election of Obama is driving acceleration in construction and deployment of Healthcare Information Exchanges and Health Insurance Exchanges. HIE construction and operation is attracting large hardware/software providers and major systems integrators. The cloud-based security and data integration requirements for HIEs will introduce new software and security technology like JSON and Oauth into the healthcare IT market. Other industry-specific community clouds may begin to develop in public education, finance, retail and manufacturing.

5. Social media. The technology behind the massive horizontal scalability of major social and search platforms is driving into the smaller-scale footprints of independent colocation facilities, hosters, ISPs, and enterprise data centers. Enterprises will refactor and redeploy more and more applications into hybrid and private cloud deployments, taking advantage of virtualization, multi-tenancy and horizontal scalability to become more competitive with public cloud-computing metrics and price points.

6. Mobile. Scalable back-end cloud services continue to be the anchor for mobile business and consumer applications. Mobility and cloud computing enjoy a virtuous synergy that can be seen in the rich native mobile applications for popular social networks, the hugely successful online store models for application purchase and delivery from Google/Apple/Amazon, and the overall growth in mobile device traffic on popular cloud-based sites and services.

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All About the Cloud Program Committee: Eileen Boerger, CorSource Technology

January 18, 2013 By

I sat down with AATC Program Committee sponsor, Eileen Boerger, President of CorSource Technology to discuss AATC, her goals for the conference and why this event is so important for ISVs.

Rhianna: Why was it important to you to sponsor AATC and be a part of the Program Committee?

Eileen: Sponsoring All About the Cloud is important because the audience at AATC is our target market, ISVs, and one of our key consulting areas is consulting and cloud developing for ISVs. AATC allows us to network with our target audience and potential partners. We’ve seen success in the past and we look forward to continued participation.

Being part of the program committee is important because we have a much stronger network ourselves in terms of the types of topics people want to see and we know a number of people that are excellent speakers. We want to contribute to making this as strong a conference as possible by helping leverage our resources.

Rhianna: What are your goals for the conference this year?

Eileen: We’d like to hear about some of the new trends from other leading vendors and hear about the current key issues that ISV’s are discussing. We’re looking to establish some new partnerships as well as generate new business.

Rhianna: What is unique about AATC that makes it so valuable to ISVs?

Eileen: It’s one of the only forums where ISVs can come together and share what works, what doesn’t work and what is still needed to be successful in developing and delivering SaaS products. It’s also the one place they can go to talk to the vendors in the space and get a much better idea of what is possible for them.

Rhianna: What are your industry predictions for what’s in store for 2013-2014?

Eileen: ISV’s have been developing SaaS products and almost all new products are SaaS…the acceptance is ok, but Enterprises are still worried about cloud. We need to prove the environment is secureand make integrations easy between products to establish confidence with the larger Enterprises.

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Software Tagged With: , , ,

Executive Profile: David Roth, Chief Executive Officer, AppFirst

January 17, 2013 By

SIIA Software Division Executive Profile

 

 Name:  David Roth
Title: Co-Founder & CEO
Company: AppFirst, Inc.

 

 

Bio:
David brings more than 25 years of experience leading organizations and leveraging partnerships for building successful hight tech companies. He sets the AppFirst, a leading SaaS based performance & big data platform, strategic direction and guides the day-to-day business execution. Prior to AppFirst, he was CEO at Trigence (now AppZero), an application virtualization company, where he established the company’s success with quarter over quarter revenue growth through enterprise adoption.

In 2003, David became Vice President, Sales, Services and Business Development at Consera, an IT automation company which was acquired by HP in 2004. As the Founder and CEO of Stratis Group, currently inside EMC, David built teams that drove the growth of this B2B solutions company throughout the late 1990s.

David began his career as a National Accounts Manager in the late 1980s at NYNEX and early 1990s at Microsoft. David received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California.

Home town: Munster, Indiana / Los Angeles, California

First job: Worked at an Ice Cream Shop

What are you currently reading?  The Advantage by Pat Lencioni

All-time favorite music:  I love jazz, classical and classic rock but with young daughters I listen to my share of pop music

What is the best meal you have had recently? At the BBQ in our back yard.

What is your next (dream) career?  I love being an entrepreneur.  The day I stop starting and building high tech companies I envision putting all my energy into helping others realize their dreams, which I may drive through education, non-for-profit projects and consulting.

Hobbies:   Playing on the company basketball team, weekend softball, supporting my daughters’ sports and dance passion.

What do you think is the hot button issue for the software & services industry going into 2013?  Software CTO’s are looking for better control points for running their SaaS businesses.  In 2013 the industry will be driven for all players to enhance their API’s & deliver cross system integration so that insight & automation can drive the greatest level of cost value performance.

Why is your company a member of SIIA?   To support our industry and further our firm’s networking so across this vast ecosystem we can all help each other grow.

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Interview with New Member: Techcello

December 28, 2012 By

SIIA is delighted to welcome our newest member Asteor Software. I had a chance to sit down with Shankar Krishnamoorthy to learn more about their application development platform.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA. Tell me a little bit about Techcello and what makes your solutions unique.

Shankar: Techcello is a cloud ready, multi-tenant application development platform – used by ISVs and Enterprises to build their products and applications faster and better.  We are featured as Gartner Cool Vendor and Nasscom Emerge League of 10 company.   ISVs who are looking at building green-field SaaS products or migrating their existing on-premise products to SaaS look at using Techcello as the platform for building their SaaS products.  And, large enterprises use our Techcello platform to build their applications such as dealership management system, benefits management systems, etc. because of our strong security engine, tenant hierarchy capabilities, business rules & workflow features, developer productivity  components, etc.  Invision, Secova, Duosoft, Roferez, Sutherland Global Services are some of our prestigious customers who have used Techcello extensively for building their applications.

Approach to application development on top of .NET is unique in Techcello.  We have productized the complex portions of building software (architecture, plumbing, data security, etc.) into Techcello and let the developers focus on building their business specific functionalities rather than bogged down by engineering complexities.  They consume the API/Webservices provided by Techcello for these complex functionalities.  While developers will stay with their usual development style and approach for building the software, it will be governed by Techcello so that complexities are taken care by Techcello and also the developers are lot more productive.  This saves anywhere between 90 to 150 people months of effort in application development on a typical large project.   So, time to market is faster.  Apart from saving cost and effort, the fact that our customers use .NET technology, which gives them the complete control and flexibility in their technical approach/decisions. We believe this provides a very unique advantage for Techcello.

Rhianna: This past year you conducted a survey on SaaS/Cloud Multi-Tenancy. Can you tell us a little about your findings?

Shankar: We asked ISVs “Where are you on the road to Cloud, SaaS and Multi-tenancy”.  We mapped Cloud adoption (Current and Planned), SaaS adoption (Current and Planned), Multi-tenancy adoption (Current and Planned), Development Approaches and Platforms. The responses show that there is a positive trend across the industry towards Cloud, SaaS and Multi-tenancy in that order.  Most companies understand the challenges, skills and investments required to build Configurable, Multi-tenant applications for a scalable Private or Public Cloud.  They recognize that shifting to SaaS requires different kind of approaches both towards software development and operationalization.  And, they prefer to stick with 3GL platforms such as.NET and J2EE for such development.   This is more towards getting freedom, flexibility and talent.  The results can be viewed here : http://blog.techcello.com/2012/04/cloud-saas-multi-tenancy-techcello-survey-2012/

Rhianna: What are some of the biggest challenges that companies face when engineering a Multi-tenant SaaS application?

Major challenge is the need of understanding multi-tenancy holistically.  Each tenant data has to be secured at all levels – whether it is user data, business rules, workflow, extension fields, etc.  Application architecture has to be built on top of data security considerations.  This also leads to several non-functional requirements.  People often underestimate the effort here. Overheads can be as high as 30%.  For example, Multi-tenant SaaS implies a single code base for 1000s of customers.  That brings in a lot of other implied needs such as the ability to customize the data models, views, rules and workflows at the end user / tenant level.  The set-up as well as enforcement of “Who sees / does what” in the system, should also be dynamically managed during run time as it may vary depending on the region / vertical / customer. Many products are designed for global use and hence we need a layered hierarchy of tenants and users.  Add to these, the obvious challenges of performance and scalability on the Cloud.   Building all these capabilities is not rocket science.  But the expertise and experience required is not easy to find; plus, it consumes good amount of time.  Developers often prefer to focus on the business functionalities and rightfully so.  But it is too risky to leave these critical engineering aspects to be closely coupled with business features.  Even for customers who want to build the whole stack ground up, we always recommend that they create a separate framework team internally to build and maintain the engineering stack.

We have written an ebook on Simplifying multi-tenant application development and it is available for you to download from our website, www.techcello.com.  We have covered all aspects of engineering a multi-tenant application development and it has received rave reviews from some of the readers/customers.

Rhianna: I saw a white paper you published on Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs). How do you define the NFRs and why is it critical to do so?

Shankar: Non-functional requirements are something which you may not define explicitly in your product specifications, but, expect that the product should have these.  Performance, Security, Scalability, Configurability, etc. will generally come under NFR as these are not generally spelt out explicitly.  If the NFRs of a custom .NET solution built for a specific customer consumes 10-15% of overall effort, the NFRs of multi-tenant SaaS products could take as high as 30%.  If the product does not meet NFRs expected by a customer, it can lead to several issues (eg. Unsatisfactory performance of the software, unsatisfied customers, revenue loss, etc.).  Thinking about them in the form of a productized framework (whether it is built in house or bought from outside), is critical for the long term TCO and maintainability.   Many people have gone to the market with Multi-tenant products thinking that it is nothing more than adding tenant ID to the database tables. And they often have to re-engineer / re-build as they go along or compromise on their competitive advantage. CEOs and CTOs should take an active role in evaluating the NFR Check list.  Based on the positive feedback we got for our white paper, we have now built an excel sheet that helps CEOs and CTOs think and choose what NFRs are needed now and in the future and calculate the effort and money that needs to be invested on them.  Please write to info@techcello.com to get more details on this ROI calculator.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Executive Profile: Gunnar Hellekson, Chief Technology Strategist, Red Hat

December 19, 2012 By

SIIA Software Division Executive Profile

Gunnar Hellekson  Name: Gunnar Hellekson
  Title: Chief Technology Strategist
Company: Red Hat

 

Gunnar Hellekson is the Chief Technology Strategist for Red Hat’s US Public Sector group, where he works with systems integrators and government agencies to encourage the use of open source software in government. He is co-chair of Open Source for America and one of Federal Computer Week’s Fed 100 for 2010. He is also an active member of the Military Open Source working group, the Freedom 2 Connect Technical Council, New America’s California Civic Innovation Project Advisory Council, and the CivicCommons Board of Advisors. He is especially interested in cross-domain security, edge innovation, and interagency collaboration through the open source model.

Home town: Honolulu, Hawaii

First job: Slaving away on an AS/400 for Louis Vuitton’s Honolulu operation when I was in high school.

What are you currently reading? “Industry and Empire”, by E.J. Hobsbawn

All-time favorite music: Reggae. I’m from Hawaii, so that’s mandatory.

What is the best meal you have had recently? The “Heather” from Taco Deli in Austin.

What is your next (dream) career? I’m doing it right now.

Hobbies: My wife, my dog, and fancy cocktails.

What do you think is the hot button issue for the software & services industry going into 2013? The elimination of customization and craftwork, and the introduction of standardization and automation.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Public Sector Innovation Summit, Software, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Interview with New Member: LiquidPlanner

December 12, 2012 By

SIIA is delighted to welcome new member LiquidPlanner. I had a chance to speak with their CEO, Liz Pearce, to learn more about the company and the project management market.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about LiquidPlanner and what makes you unique in the Project Management market.

Liz: LiquidPlanner is unique because it is the only project management software to offer a bold new approach to scheduling. We call it “priority-based scheduling,” and it’s not only easier, but also far more accurate than traditional project management solutions based on the Gantt chart. Our robust scheduling engine actually automates much of the manual work that traditionally falls to project managers. In fact, our customers report their teams save an average of 16 hours a month from the automation benefits provided by LiquidPlanner.

Here’s how it works. In LiquidPlanner, you give tasks “best case / worst case” estimates and put them in priority order. Then LiquidPlanner automatically calculates for you an expected completion date for each task and for the project as a whole, based on who the work is assigned to and how much availability they have. Unlike other project management solutions, LiquidPlanner does not allow you to overbook a team member, so the results are based on real world availability of resources. Because projects and tasks are prioritized in rank order, you can instantly see when a change to one project impacts another – something that is impossible with most other tools.

LiquidPlanner also offers time tracking, collaboration, analytics, mobile apps, and more, all delivered through the cloud. We launched the company in 2008 and have over 1,200 customers in 50+ countries worldwide, many of whom are software, IT, and creative organizations.

Rhianna: How do you think the Project Management space has evolved in the last 3-5 years and what trends are driving that evolution?

Liz: The general proliferation of SaaS-based business tools has been transformative for the project management industry. Shared, collaborative systems are now the norm, in contrast to the time just a few years ago when the project manager alone held the keys to the castle. It’s resulting in a new “democratization of project data,” where information on workload, estimation accuracy, and tracking is now available to all members of the team. That means team members can get a barometric read on their own performance relative to others, not to mention better insight into their own contributions, areas for improvement, and roadmap of responsibility. Now, the onus is on vendors to provide solutions that are easier to use, so each team member themselves can update the project workspace without the need for a specialized project manager in the IT department. The trend of SaaS-based project management also means executives are getting unprecedented visibility into capacity and their ability to deliver products and services. I think you’ll see more and more businesses reporting internal cost savings from smarter project management tools.

Rhianna: You do a lot to ensure security and support with your solution. Can you tell us a little about the measure you take to ensure overall security and support of your solutions?

Liz: One of the great things about the SaaS model is that software providers live and die by the quality of service they offer. Naturally, we go to great lengths to ensure end-to-end security and reliability, from authenticating every user account via email to using SSL technology for server authentication and data encryption. We manage our own servers at a world-class data center here in Seattle. In addition to tight physical security measures, it’s architected to protect against hardware and software failure with redundant power and internet connections, hot failover servers, nightly off-site data backups, and 24/7/365 monitoring.

Rhianna: You recently took over the CEO position, having previously held the COO role at LiquidPlanner. What is your vision for the future of the company?

Liz: It’s an incredibly exciting time at LiquidPlanner. We’re really entering the second era of LiquidPlanner’s life as a company. The first five years were dedicated to R&D – we set out to tackle a really big, hard problem and disrupt an old and stagnant market. During this period, we essentially bootstrapped the company to profitability and established a loyal customer base around the world. Today, LiquidPlanner has more than 1,100 paying customers in 50 countries across multiple industries and the company was named one of “Washington’s Best WorkPlaces” by the Puget Sound Business Journal. The next phase for LiquidPlanner is all about driving the company’s growth and extending our platform. We see so many opportunities to help teams tackle increasingly complex projects in today’s competitive business environment, and we are investing heavily in social productivity innovation to meet this growing demand. My vision is that LiquidPlanner becomes a component of the must-have business software toolkit for businesses of all sizes, alongside industry leaders like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Box. We’re lucky to be doing business in a time when innovation, quality, and service are rewarded – on those grounds we are very solid. I’m extremely bullish on the future.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Software, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
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