CaaS / SaaS Featured Article

Apprenda to Aid Software Vendors with New SaaS Platform

By Michael Dinan, TMCnet Editor

Targeting a technology that’s gaining traction in this recession, a Clifton Park, New York-based company today released a Software as a Service, or “SaaS (News - Alert),” platform designed to give independent vendors to manage business and application products.

 

Officials at Apprenda Inc. say “SaaSGrid” reduces time to market for ISVs by weaving a SaaS architecture automatically into their non-SaaS Web applications while providing long-term value through Web-based application management.

 

Generally speaking, SaaS refers to a software deployment model where an application is hosted as a service that’s provided to customers across the Internet. Experts say that by getting rid of the need to install and run an application on a customer’s computer, SaaS streamlines software maintenance, operation and support.

 

According to Sinclair Schuller, Apprenda’s chief executive officer, SaaSGrid does for on-demand software development what the operating system did for desktop software development.

 

“We’ve created a cloud operating system for SaaS, which provides a new layer of abstraction that takes the burden of creating SaaS specific technology, architecture and business components off of ISVs shoulders,” Schuller said.

 

Specifically, Apprenda officials say, SaaSGrid helps ISVs bring their solutions to market faster by offering multi-tenancy, user and role systems, provisioning, monetization, billing and payments and application lifecycle and release management.

 

Here’s how company officials diagram the SaaSGrid within overall work responsibilities for an ISV:

 

Apprenda officials say their SaaS model brings a non-disruptive solution to an ISV’s core business.

 

For Schuller, the desktop operating system short-circuited the wasted effort that the industry sank into complicated parts of application development by capturing redundancy into the OS value layer. In the same way, SaaSGrid is designed to quash the need to engineer a SaaS delivery architecture and auxiliary business tools by automatically injecting SaaS DNA into the architecture of the applications it hosts.

 

“This allows our customers to focus on their core business domain and competencies, deferring SaaS difficulties to SaaSGrid rather than making disproportionate investments in solving these non-strategic problems in their applications,” he said.

 

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Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan