Continuing evolution of cloud application software

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Brian Sommer.

In technology, everything evolves, mutates and, eventually, goes away after being replaced by something altogether better, newer, cooler and more powerful. Sometimes, even new technologies experience rapid evolution. Cloud computing is definitely in the mutating and evolving phase of its existence.  Let’s look at how cloud computing has changed in the application software space so far.

Early cloud pioneers, think salesforce.com and Plex, were launched in the late 1990s, offered a multi-tenant SaaS (software as a service) solution. Their chief selling points were economic in nature. There was no software to install, no on-site hardware required, etc. Many early cloud SaaS solutions even came priced on a monthly basis. These solutions could scale up or down based on business need…

More cloud pioneers emerged – particularly in the HR and Talent Management spaces. Workday, SuccessFactors, Taleo and many more emerged. These firms, like their predecessors, not only had multi-tenant solutions, they also provided a very important economic benefit: the vendors performed all of the application upgrades and maintenance. This one benefit turned out to be approximately 40-60% of the total cost of software ownership (based on reviews we did in 2010)…

Read more from the source @ http://www.zdnet.com/continuing-evolution-of-cloud-application-software-7000017719/