I was reminded on Linked In today by a Group calling itself PlaceWas that in April it will be 10 years since the acquisition of PlaceWare by Microsoft? PlaceWho? you may ask.
In it’s day, PlaceWare was the biggest competitor to Webex. While Webex outsourced development to Asia and spent $millions on marketing (even a 6’6″ transvestite advert during Super Bowl, I kid you not), PlaceWare, being the product of Xerox’s PARC Research Center (the birthplace of ethernet and many other technologies, don’t you know), spent most of its cash on developing its Web Collaboration platform in Silicon Valley. While PlaceWare were No 2 in the US, I was particularly proud of being the first man in for Europe as VP and built the business up to be the No 1 market leader against Webex.
Then Webex streaked by, we got bought for a song by Microsoft and Webex went on to dominate and be bought for $billions by Cisco. Hey ho, more stock options worth nothing.
The point of my story, apart from trying to plan a reason to be in California in April to attend the reunion with a lot of great people, was that PlaceWare was Software as a Service. It was served via what we would call today, The Cloud, and it was sold as an annuity service. Around the same time, Salesforce.com arrived and there was a real buzz in the industry as the internet was seen as a new medium to serve software and other services. There was a lot of ‘Bah Humbug’ around from those who thought such businesses would never survive, that no company would have ‘mission critical’ applications or services served form the web and that premise based applications behind solid firewalls was the only viable future.
Over 10 years on and the same arguments are still preached about the Cloud. ‘Take the plug out and the application is rendered useless’ is the same old argument presented by the tree huggers who believe desktop based applications are the only really reliable ones. That would be the same old applications that crash on a regular basis on my laptop, then? Ropey, clunky, expensive software with same bugs consuming more resources as each year passes by.
What the Cloud and SaaS produced was real software innovation. The whole explosion of tablets and smartphones have allowed clever people to use multiple different delivery methods to get low cost, handy and innovative software to users easily, cheaply and reliably. The Cloud gets everywhere and we pay far less for many applications and services than we have ever done, thanks to it.
It means that we can share in large scale storage solutions at a fraction of the cost of buying it ourselves whether we are a home user or a large corporation, it means start ups can scale fast without consuming precious cash and credit on large capital outlays, it means large companies can flex their capacities to meet demand without having to invest only for peak requirements. The Cloud brings scale and innovation.
Yes, we could pull a plug out and take the internet offline for while and productivity might stall but so many Cloud based solutions don’t need constant connection anymore. I can create MS compatible documents on my iPad and connect to the web later if I wish for less than £15 to have Excel, Word and PPT files. It’s that easy and that cheap.
Between Apple, Google and Salesforce.com to name just 3 innovators on a grand scale, the world of software, how we buy it and how much we pay for it has changed dramatically. It has changed for ever.
So the message is to resellers that it’s time to take a long hard look at how the Cloud will change the competitive landscape. To mix news stories, the internet killed the retail businesses Comet, Jessops and HMV recently not because people did not want to buy the products they sold, it was the methods by which people buy that killed them. Changing business models, embracing change and developing new methodologies is essential to keep up with and ahead of the market – and for resellers the biggest threat is the biggest opportunity. The Cloud.
Azlan is innovating as a distributor to bring the Cloud opportunity to resellers. TD Cloud is our program and it provides the platform, the learning, the products, the services and the way to bill Cloud products and services so that resellers can participate in the new market. TD Cloud will be a conduit for resellers to access the vendors and service providers who are making a difference in this market. Also, at SDG, there are real tangible Cloud products and services already available and more to come. As we merge the two companies it will make Azlan SDG the premier Cloud distributor and lead the way for the new market opportunities for resellers.
2013 will be a year when resellers will need to make their moves, embrace the Cloud and adapt. It will not only be about embracing opportunities, it will also be about long term survival as the retail industry has shown. There is little room left for ‘Luddite’ companies who cling to the vain hope that the obvious will not affect them. The Cloud will change everything for everyone – even the mightiest of companies will be affected.
So my story ends where it all started. PlaceWare and others were the forerunners of what we know see as commonplace. In some small way, Placeware helped change the software world. That’s worth celebrating 10 years on. Now it’s the turn of companies like Azlan and SDG.
Come along for the ride.
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