SaaS的负面消息
Qing
- Panorama Novaview
- PivotLink
- JasperSoft
- Jedox
- SAP
- Host Analytic
- Lixto
- RoamBI
- JasperSoft JasperForge
- LucidEra
- Adaptive Planning
- Analytix
- Oco
- Birst
cnzhangzhen
BI SaaS Vendors Struggle to Survive and Some Do Not
Mark A. Smith
Information Management Blogs, June 25, 2009
The market for BI might seem rosy for most in the industry and while
some analyst firms predict significant growth and BI already being a
top priority for CIO's which it is really not, most of us who have
been in the industry for decades know a different reality. BI is not
being adopted as fast as it could be in almost all organizations and
is splintered across business and IT lines that have done more to
hamper growth than support it. The overload of business continuing to
use the flexibility of spreadsheets, presentations and email as I
found in our decision-making and performance management benchmark
research and moving slowly to lead new initiatives for BI and
performance management. And as well IT has been seriously focused on
optimizing IT budget and resources where more focus has been giving to
the re-engineering of data management creating new technology buzz
than to the accessibility and delivery of analytics and metrics to
business.
Where does that leave the BI industry? Still justifying the necessity
of having enterprise class BI or the specific needs of departmental
and workgroup BI. Well, not moving as fast as it could be creating
rifts and delays to the growth of the BI market. I earlier this year
pointed out the importance of cloud computing for business where the
use of subscribing to software in a rental basis could help
organizations accelerate their implementation and use of software more
rapidly. Over the last three to four years, many newer and other
technology vendors re-entering the market have stepped into providing
BI in this new subscription based approach where the software,
hardware, storage and servers are maintained by the technology
provider.
Many of these providers including Birst, BlinkLogic, LucidEra, Oco,
PivotLink and others have been working to grow fast enough to grow a
critical base of customers to gain market share. This has not been as
easy as they would like as the buyers for BI have very different needs
as those in business need more than just tools but context of their
analytic needs and IT is looking at infrastructure they can integrate
into their enterprise of applications and data repositories. With this
divide, these vendors have struggled in their communication of what
they provide the best to these audiences and have historically not
provided enough depth for either audience to be successful in gain the
velocity of new customers in any meaningful way. They have also not
leveraged their position to extend and deliver value for business
collaboration and access information across mobile devices which is a
top priority or even integrate other information easily across the
Internet in what I identified as Market Intelligence. Without
significant differentiation and leveraging the need of integrating
masses of spreadsheets and working more easily across businesses and
processes, these vendors look more like basic BI than something that
can expand the potential of BI in organizations.
I am not surprised at the results of many of these vendors as I have
often met with the senior executives of these companies and tried to
explain the complexities of marketing and selling in the BI market
with tough choices to make and establish differentiation, but always
ended up with the similar answer - 'we know what we are doing'. Pretty
interesting as many of these executives either had little experience
in the BI industry or a lot of experience. Of course over the last
year many of these vendors have begun to realize this reality I
explain to many of them and started to build more line of business
centric analytics and context to try to get VP, director and analysts
within areas like sales and marketing or customer areas to more deeply
look at their offering. For many, a little too late and with time
running out in use of their crucial venture capital, the future is not
so rosy.
Do not get me wrong, many of these vendors have some good capabilities
but did not focus their efforts, ignored market research on what
buyers in business and IT need from BI, and just forged ahead working
through critical capital than instead of optimizing its use in a
timely manner. The first vendor in this group to go is LucidEra who
had some good technology but did not turn the corner and leave their
initial BI focus and double-down in sales analytics and pipeline
efforts fast enough before they last week ran out of money and closed
their doors. This closing of the doors is not unusual in the software
industry but leaves most of their customers in a lurch as they must
now decide what to do next. For many organizations who have been
requesting advice on what risk should they take in adopting BI in a
software as a service method, this is not an easy answer as there are
large challenges for many of these vendors . Of course it does not
help these vendors much when mainstream BI vendors like Information
Builders now provide their software available in the Amazon software
cloud and are well capitalized to survive any issues.
I would expect that we see more of this hybrid approach from larger,
more capitalized commercial BI vendors who see the cost of entering
this market as low, and operating their software in environments like
Amazon or Google, and having a central staff anywhere in the world and
manage it as not that difficult. It will probably be more challenging
that I pointed out last year. So, the next year will be interesting to
see who might fall next like LucidEra or become part of some larger
organization who wants to acquire them, but BI will continue to have a
slow and steady pace forward.
On 6月30日, 下午1时42分, Qing <happys...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 最近有个客户想搞SaaS，BI方面的SaaS，是当服务提供者。从规模上看他们是能搞的，而且据说已经用潜在的用户需求，所以，被要求去找一些关于BI
> SaaS方面的信息。
>
> 可就在这个六月的下旬，几乎是BI
> SaaS代表----LucidEra，正式对外宣称，他们不玩这个了<http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9493>
> 。真是让人沮丧的消息，不过也给目前SaaS热泼了盆冷水。LucidEra一直是SaaS的鼓吹手，现在成了先烈。能说明什么？SaaS玩不转，或者是这家公司已经撑不到胜利的那一刻？从对外的宣称来说，之所以如此，并非是因为SaaS这个理念的问题，而是因为缺乏资金。这块在不久的将来可能会被其他厂商买去，而已经有些同类型的厂商开始抢夺其用户，比如PivotLink、Birst都试图提供免费的试用产品，鬣狗。有分析说这是大环境下的影响，除了LucidEra，还有一家搞数据库的Dataupia处境也不太妙。
>
> 还可以看看其竞争对手Birst的老板的评语 <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10270723-62.html>
> ，当然，这个时候是千万不能说SaaS的不对，总归肯定是LucidEra的经营有问题。首先是夸奖几句，他们是SaaS的传道者；对中小企业的快速部署的需求很了解；对企业一线的分析支持力度很大。然后就是一大串缺点（这才是重点）：客户需要的是整合解决方案而不是应用；需要能从众多数据源获取数据，而不仅仅是salesforce；客户虽然需要快速部署，但也需要强大分析功能。唉，这些话听着总觉得有些兔死狐悲的感觉。
>
> 对于BI行业的SaaS应用，数据整合、数据安全这些问题现在都还没有得到很好的解决。我对我们那位客户的想法是反对的，不论怎样，目前这块是不成熟的，如果说CRM、ERP已经逐步标准化，已经可以以在线服务的方式提供，但BI，很多还不能够，现在很多厂商是提供绩效管理、财务分析，以及垂直分析应用的服务形式，他们都是在尝试，试图探索一条路子。对国内的企业来说，有搞SaaS的想法恐怕大多是因为潮流的原因吧，因为这个名词出现越来越多，于是觉得自己有能力，也有客户资源，就可以搞一搞，却也不去考虑是否这是自己的核心能力之处。但也许对这位客户来说，也是他的尝试。领导说，现在增长乏力，想一些新的业务出来。于是想来想去，发现这个热点，就想搞，想直接拿出一些方案出来。对此，我想还是首先先做好可行性论证，至少得有这种态度。
>
> 可行性论证有时候也是容易被人作为工具，用来去说服人们去干什么或不干什么。说服别人比思考问题本身要难，至少我是这么觉得的，而对于某些人来说，说服人是很容易的事情。
>
> 上周给客户灌输我们解决方案，其中包括一套指标体系，这是个地市级的电信客户，针对同样的问题，也在考虑一些指标，不过他们更加从考核的角度出发，而我更多从管理角度出发。其实落到底层细节，很多是重叠的，本来我也参考了他们的指标集，然后梳理成不同类别，目的是做全省的标准。我们当然是希望市公司能够用我们。这样做虽然看起来只是对指标的重新分类，但似乎已经触犯了他们，他们觉得自己已经有分类，你们来插一杠子干什么。隐隐之间有意思冲突，所以，当指出其中指标设计中一些明显不合理的地方是，都会得到抵触情绪。其实，到那个地步已经没法去说服他们，可能在一开始顺着他们还更容易点。
>
> 有点跑题，正题还是SaaS的未来是不是随着LucidEra远去，我觉着其实经常某个想法往往很好，但被人一理解，一使用，就变味道了。事情有成有败，但我觉得目前还是缺少一种很好的BI
> SaaS的模式，其实，甚至就是普通非SaaS的BI，何尝有什么好的应用模式呢？毕竟，人们如何将BI融入到自己的业务流程、决策流程中还是个不小的问题。
>
> 未来只有拭目以待，搜集了些做BI
> SaaS的厂商，有的是提供报表，有的提供绩效管理，有的是垂直行业的分析服务，比如Lxito提供旅游方面分析服务。这里面必定也是几家欢喜几家愁：
>
> - Panorama Novaview
> - PivotLink
> - JasperSoft
> - Jedox
> - SAP
> - Host Analytic
> - Lixto
> - RoamBI
> - JasperSoft JasperForge
> - LucidEra
> - Adaptive Planning
> - Analytix
> - Oco
> - Birst
Qing
SAAS行业正在流行同性恋和自恋狂
 |
|
一片惨淡和凄凉的SAAS行业，几乎家家亏损、个个困惑，但却相互发起的了所谓的大奖，看起来很是可笑。
6月25日“2009 SaaS在中国——第三届中国软件运营服务大会”上：
1、金蝶友商网， 获“年度中小企业在线管理服务创新奖”；
2、用友伟库网， 获本届SaaS大会最权威大奖——“年度贡献奖”；
3、阿里软件， 获得唯一的“最佳商业模式将”；
4、中企开源， 获“SaaS运营平台年度贡献奖”；
5、八百客 获本届SaaS大会权威大奖——“客户关系管理SaaS年度贡献奖
....
再看看2008年的发奖盛况：
1、“伟库网独揽“中小企业类”产品创新大奖和“最有潜力SaaS厂商”评价”
2、 积木软件荣获SaaS商务管理类产品创新奖
3、 阿里软件独揽“最佳商业模式大奖”
4、 风云网络及其总经理戴晔分别荣获“SaaS产业最具影响力企业”和“SaaS时代风云人物”两项大奖。
5、 会上评选铭万公司八方通宝为“SAAS产品创新大奖”。
6、 金算盘获得SaaS商业模式创新大奖
7、，欧乐软件一举包揽仅有的两大SaaS奖项--“2008-2009中国SaaS市场年度成长最快企业”及“2008-2009中国外贸行业SaaS应用创新解决方案”。
8、 会上授予八方通宝“SAAS架构最佳电子商务解决方案”称号
这些奖项的标准是什么？和谁比赛？如何界定奖项的价值？
大概是按照花钱多少决定奖项名称和大小，地球人都知道。既然都是自己花钱买奖，那就是自恋。
一帮自恋狂，聚在一起开会和喊口号，可是完全没有听众，他们只好互相呼喊，好似同性恋。
SAAS还没有赚钱，不过计世资讯曹开彬已经赚钱了，只好他还能“创新”出各种名目的奖项名称，建议2010年SAAS论坛增设“最佳北京用户欢迎SAAS大奖”，这样全国每个城市名称都可以成为一个大奖，然后被10万元1个的价格卖给需要皇帝新装的SAAS厂家。计世资讯的SAAS业务做的不错，按需支付，各取所需。
ding jianting
--
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