The believer

Computer Sweden (the largest IT paper in Sweden) ran a SaaS topic last week including a conference (when I was in Cannés...).

The seven articles are found here (in Swedish).

It's great to see this effort and I'm looking forward to more to come.
(Also glad that they put in the effort to find other SaaS representatives than just Salesforce...)

The most interesting presentation at the the IT fair was given by Magnus Stenberg from MySQL (an open source database provider from Sweden bought by Sun Microsystems for 1 billion USD).

The topic was if property management systems are ready for an open source approach. The question wasn't really answered. It was more about the story of MySQL and how clients in general could use their database technology. A very interesting presentation though.

Started a debate
Anyway, since I believed that there was to little debate and I wanted to increase the temperature I stated that one of the reasons when suppliers don't go for mySQL could be that they believe it will be more expansive when it comes to hire consultants in this field and referred to an article in Computer Sweden (the largest IT paper in Sweden). Not surprisingly, this point was denied. (Even   laughed at which in a sense proves the point...)

The 'fact'
Unfortunately I wasn't able to defend my point (I wasn't given the microphone) with 'facts' (it is still just an article) and showing the actual source of my point, so here is the link to the article (in Swedish). The story is about that an 'open source' consultant could cost up to 1 500 SEK/hour, compared to 950 SEK/hour for a .NET developer.

Of course, there is not one (1) truth when it comes to prices and it will change over time. My point is still that it could be one of the reasons why a company hesitates to make the change to open source program. Not saying that it's wrong to go there.

Well, at least the temperature raised....   ;-)

My blog activity has been low for a longer period (quite an understatement) due to a massive work load since we (read Datscha) had a major release on the 20th of may. Not just a release or upgrade, we're talking about a complete new platform.

Anyone being through such a technical project know the scale of it. Below is a screenshot from the Property Analysis module, where the user is able to calculate the value of a commercial property using a cashflow model. (If you're interested in testing our service, just drop me a line.)

The release has been a great success, both technically and from a user perspective. Being the Product Manager through such a project is for sure mental roller coster. One of the most challenging aspects, in the later stage of the project, is to keep track of bugs and enhancements that are needed to be done prior to release.

Too many MS Excel spreadsheets
Like in the property industry there seems to be too many Excel spreadsheets also in the IT industry. To use Excel to track bugs works fine in a smaller project, but it will quickly be cumbersome in a larger project. Instead use a 'Bug and Issues tracking software'. Over there years have tried a handful an no one comes even close to Jira from the Australian company Atlassian. Through it's simplicity and well designed interface it's almost fun (?) to work with.

Screenshots save time
One great feature in Jira is the possibility to easy attach a screenshot to an 'issue', which indeed helps the developers to understand how the, for example, enhancement is supposed to work. So the next step is to have a solution to easily take screenshots and to add a note or highlight a specific part. A great solution for this is SnagIT from TechSmith.

The simplicity to take a screenshot of a smaller part of the screen, add a note and put in an issue has saved us hundreds of hours of communication. In other words, a better product in a shorter time.

Since last October there has been a lot of writing about Salesforce and their outages. This has of course started a discussion about the reability of SaaS. Like this one 'Salesforce.com's hiccups'  (Rough Type, 2006-02-01).

In order to be transparent Salesforce created the site http://trust.salesforce.com.
A site that monitors the uptime for their service.

However, the surprising part is that other SaaS companies are using this to impress the market. "Some of its rivals have taken to monitoring the site and sending e-mails to reporters whenever something is amiss."   The Tech Beat 2006-04-27 

How clever is that?
I guess the question the potential customers are asking themselves are if to go for a webservice. Not which one. Like pointed out in this ZDnet article 'Are Salesforce's outages sullying the reputation fo the SaaS model?'

To use Skype for calling over Internet is nothing new. However, now they have the solved the problem of people not being online. The introduction of a voicemail service solves that beautifully.
Click here for more info.

Not surprisingly that OECD in a report see Skype (and other VoIP) as a threat to fixed-line carries.

A 'mash-up' is based on APIs to interact with a site and "to pull data from Web sites and to combine it with another information source to create something new".

Links in the area:
"From web page to web platform"  CNET article, 16th august 2005

Flashmaps A great site using Google Maps
Click here to find out where I live...

Winerybound.com  Contains listings of all the wineries in the U.S.
On the first page, click on the link 'view all wineries' and you will see the 'mash-up'.