Betadesk

How LinkedIn cornered Facebook at the Olympics (cartoon)

lucidesk — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 03:11:16 -0400

How LinkedIn cornered Facebook at the Olympics (cartoon)

The Startup CEO Starter Kit - Part Deux by Barf The Startup Kid

lucidesk — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:17:43 -0400

The Startup CEO Starter Kit - Part Deux

by Barf The Startup Kid

"Customers care about their problems NOT your solution"

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:57:49 -0400

““Customers care about their problems NOT your solution””

- Dave McLure

"Vision without Execution is Hallucination"

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 01:12:21 -0400

““Vision without Execution is Hallucination””

- Thomas Edison

"Pursue long term goals vs short term satisfaction. Startup success is a long term goal whereas..."

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:05:52 -0400

““Pursue long term goals vs short term satisfaction. Startup success is a long term goal whereas salary is a short term satisfaction””

- Me

"Wearing your ambition on your sleeve will get you cut off at the knees, but ambition is required to..."

lucidesk — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 02:13:30 -0400

“Wearing your ambition on your sleeve will get you cut off at the knees, but ambition is required to succeed; the challenge is channeling it properly and managing your emotions around it.Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

- Mark Zuckerberg

"Successful people don’t always make the right decisions. Instead, they make decisions, then..."

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 04:30:07 -0400

““Successful people don’t always make the right decisions. Instead, they make decisions, then make them right””

"Successful people aren’t necessarily smarter or luckier than others. They just try so many..."

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 04:20:27 -0400

““Successful people aren’t necessarily smarter or luckier than others. They just try so many things and fail until something works out.””

Four Steps to Epiphany -Steve Blank

lucidesk — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:23:00 -0400

Four Steps to Epiphany -Steve Blank

"Build, Measure, Learn"

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:41:49 -0400

““Build, Measure, Learn””

"Work harder on yourself, than you do on your job"

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:17:35 -0400

““Work harder on yourself, than you do on your job””

- Anonymous

What is the difference between Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vs On-Demand application offerings?

lucidesk — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:14:00 -0400

Jargons are aplenty in the application software world - however, things get really cloudy (literally!) when terms such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are confused with On-Demand. While both offerings are ALWAYS ON, there are a variety of differences between them.

6 Differences between Software-as-a-Service (Saas) and On-Demand application offerings

1. Rent vs. Own

In the SaaS world, you truly do not “own” the software. What you are doing is paying for the service provided by the software on a subscription basis - subscription can metered by use or tiered monthly subscription. You could even have contracts, say for 3 years with auto-renewal clauses baked in. In the On-Demand world, customers buy “the software” and pay a fee to the vendor for management of that software and infrastructure. Additional fees for customization and integrations can be negotiated with the vendor.

2. Extend vs. Customize

Advanced SaaS offerings provide the ability to extend the SaaS platform for your own needs - while the extensibility capabilities of SaaS platforms have certainly matured over the years, they are nowhere near the level of customization, standards-based infrastructure that On-Demand platforms can provide. SaaS extensibility is limited to defining data elements on the fly, application scripts and business workflows.

3. Regulatory, privacy and security concerns

SaaS applications are typically multi-tenant - Salesforce, a SaaS vendor, offers a multi-tenant stack i.e. data from multiple customers reside on the same database, managed by their own security policies and partitioned services. With no security and privacy violations being reported in the popular press, most organizations are getting over this hump except for vertical customers in finance, insurance and others with regulatory needs. Companies such as Oracle offer SaaS solutions in a virtualized environment, with absolutely no data sharing, somewhat mitigating the risk and regulatory non-compliance for large customers. Since Oracle has control of the hardware with its Sun acquisition, their value proposition in this regard is the best in the industry. Having said that, all SaaS vendors retain the right to anonymize their customers usage data and create summary competitive intelligence about their respective industries.

4. Upgrade or not?

SaaS vendors typically upgrade all of their customers seamlessly and simultaneously. Think of them as Utility companies - where you never even realize when the backend infrastructure changes. On-Demand offerings allow the customer the choice to skip or perform an upgrade, depending on negotiated contractual terms.

5. Size matters! But not a rule

On-Demand customers have need for greater privacy and control over their application stack. They tend to be the larger brands as well as customers in verticals such as finance, insurance and others that have regulatory needs for such a system. Cost also factors into the equation. Having said that, there are multitudes of deployments by large customers using SaaS offerings.

6. Last but certainly the best, Contractual Flexibility

On-Demand offerings have thorough structured “win-win” contracts, where nothing is off-limits in terms of upfront negotiation. Customers can even choose to start with an On-Demand model and as part of the contract leave open the option to move the entire deployment on-premise within the customers own IT infrastructure. This is a competitive necessity for growth companies who want to start with a measured approach but ramp up as their needs increase or at some point, take over control. Flexibility in terms of upgrade choice, customizations for negotiated fees, integrations with other parts of the customers IT landscape, what the vendor can do or not-do with the data are all terms to negotiate on.

Now that some of the fog has cleared, I’d like to keep things interesting - what is the difference between a Cloud and SaaS offering?

"Grit is the perseverance and passion required for achieving a long-term goal"

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:26:52 -0400

““Grit is the perseverance and passion required for achieving a long-term goal””

- term goal”

"There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult."

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:21:51 -0400

““There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.””

About Skeumorphism, Apple and Ive

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:18:56 -0400

About Skeumorphism, Apple and Ive

Why arent you lucky?

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:18:11 -0400

Why arent you lucky?

"Bring HIGHLY ENGAGED with initial customers and early adopters always works"

lucidesk — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:17:00 -0400

““Bring HIGHLY ENGAGED with initial customers and early adopters always works””

- ycombinator

"Less is More” vs “Just Enough is More"

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:16:31 -0400

““Less is More” vs “Just Enough is More””

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to..."

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:13:56 -0400

““Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away””

Only Handle It Once

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:13:37 -0400

Either start a task and handle it completely; or leave it alone until you make time