InterviewCloud coverFrom Document Manager Magazine Vol 18 No 03 - June 2010 At the start of 2009, DocuWare announced it was to channel an additional 1,000,000 euros into the development of web-based solutions. DM Editor David Tyler spoke to co-president of the company, Jürgen Biffar, about the reasoning behind this strategy David Tyler: A one million euro additional investment over the next two years suggests that DocuWare sees web technologies as absolutely crucial to its continuing success in the future. Can you explain why?
Jürgen Biffar: We are a very strong believer in the future of SaaS and cloud computing: in maybe five or ten years the majority of business applications will be used via a cloud or SaaS model. Businesses won't be buying application software to install anymore: they will use software via the Internet on an 'as-needed' basis. The salesforce.com model is likely to become the standard for the future.
Our convictions here are supported by things we are hearing from many big players. Microsoft and IBM, for instance, were saying at the recent CeBIT show that cloud computing will become their number one priority - even if that approach might initially cost them market share. Being a company with a 'traditional' business model - i.e. that we sell software designed to be installed on-premise, this represents a tremendous challenge for us.
DT: Very few competitors in the ECM/DM space appear to be committing themselves as visibly to the SaaS/cloud model as DocuWare. Is this perhaps because of the potential costs involved?
JB: We have learnt very quickly that this is not simply a matter of taking your old software, putting it into a data centre and making it available on a rental basis: there is a lot more to it than that. Paradoxically, it requires a major technical investment in order to keep our proposition simple.
With an on-premise solution it's no problem to simply add another server if you require faster operation or access to wider resources. But adding servers in a SaaS environment just drives up costs, which ultimately affects the price you have to charge your users. Therefore we need to focus much more now on scalability and efficiency - specifically because the most successful SaaS applications will have much higher server workloads because their users, typically, are using browser based clients.
Another challenge, of course, is that the 100 megabit bandwidth that is commonly available for users of in-house installations simply isn't available to individual users connecting to a cloud offering - more typically they may be limited to a 5 megabit connection. This has meant that we have to look very carefully at exactly how data is being transferred. These are major technology issues, so clearly they require major investments, not just in terms of money but also the time it takes to transfer our software in this way.
We are confident that we need to make these investments now, in order that we are not already too late when the time comes that the market begins to demand document management over the web, whether that be via the cloud or a SaaS model. And yes, we do appear to be the only company in this sector who are investing at this level in order to get this advantage over our competitors - who perhaps are simply hoping that this web demand just isn't going to happen!
DT: What about timescales - when will users start to see the fruits of this web focus?
JB: Our first offerings became available around six months ago - essentially an evolution of our on-premise solutions, with additional services such as web-based back-up and long term archiving. We're testing the market with these offerings right now, to see how the market and our partners react. Then our next major product release will offer much more functionality in the SaaS model, early next year. At that point we will be fine-tuning our go-to-market strategies and our billing and purchasing models.
We will also then be looking at the new (to us!) SOHO market, which may well require a totally different approach. The whole Cloud solutions market could be said to be being driven entirely by the SOHO sector, which seems to be moving away from the traditional Microsoft business productivity applications in favour of the likes of Google Apps.
Interestingly, that may also turn out to be the area where we will see competitors starting to come through. It remains to be seen if that market will turn out to be a target area for us, or if we will have enough business to keep us busy with the existing enterprise users!
More info: www.docuware.com Interview |
