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Forget Google, is Anyone Paying Attention to Amazon.com?

Google gets a lot of hype, but there are lots of major things happening in SaaS right now, including new offerings from Amazon.com. Amazon.com? You heard me right. Since March, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced 3 utility computing offerings:

  • S3 - Simple Storage Service: Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.
  • SQS - Simple Queuing Service: Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) offers a reliable, highly scalable hosted queue for storing messages as they travel between computers. By using Amazon SQS, developers can simply move data between distributed application components performing different tasks, without losing messages or requiring each component to be always available. 
  • EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud: Now released in a Limited Beta, Amazon EC2 enables "compute" in the cloud. Amazon EC2's simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon's proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.

So while Google is now adding business-focused services in response to Microsoft's Office Live and SalesForce is trying to attract ISVs to AppExchange as "the platform" for SaaS, Amazon is quietly starting to recruit developers to build services using their bulding blocks. True web-services in the cloud from (perhaps) an unlikely source.

Could this be the beginnings of some true composite services built on component web services sourced from anywhere in the cloud? What does this mean for SaaS Hosting offerings from Managed Hosting providers?

Amazon's EC2 is basically a virtual Linux server with very reasonable usage-based pricing. It isn't a computing "grid", yet - but given the energy that Sun is putting into their utility computing offering (Sun Grid) and the possibility of Google exposing their own grid infrastructure to create a true utility computing offering, we may see the Amazon Grid sooner than we think!

Published Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:07 PM by hagins

Comments

 

Frisco said:

Does anyone know if any real services have been built on top of Amazon's offerings?

August 31, 2006 1:10 PM
 

hawkinson said:

Interesting, but in my view in its current form the Amazon offerings are less relevant than Microsoft and Google efforts.  I'm unclear who they are trying to target.  Is this the offshoot of some obviously talented Amazon technology teams who told themselves, "we built these great tools for our own development, maybe we should expose them and see what happens."?  Or is there some more robust business strategy behind it?

If I'm a developer, does this do anything to actually help my business from a sales and marketing standpoint?  Perhaps Amazon could market SaaS offerings built on their platform to consumers, but that would pretty significantly limit the category of apps that would be relevant.  If I'm a developer that wants to sell my software to businesses, I would turn my attention to initiatives that also bring me sales and marketing support.

If you're a small business or consumer customer, then these offerings have no relevance because they lack end-user value.  They are developer and IT-centric.

Worth digging into though and keeping track of them.  Thanks for putting them on the radar and I hope that you consider posting an update as their offering develops.

August 31, 2006 2:52 PM
 

hagins said:

I think that you have to keep what Amazon and Sun (with Sun Grid) are doing logically separate from SalesForce and any others who are operating a SaaS Marketplace of some kind. Amazon and Sun's offerings are more competitive with say, OpSource, or Rackspace -- a computing/storage on-demand offering that supplants the "traditional" managed hosting offering.

What they are doing isn't helpful to the ISV from a go-to-market perspective, but still very much a part of the build/buy decision that any SaaS ISV would make. The decision if you are a Linux/Java SaaS ISV is now: 1. build it myself, 2. buy it from a managed hosting provider, or 3. subscribe to it online instantly from Amazon, Sun Grid, etc.

This is a Hardware-as-a-Service or utility computing offering. The question for the ISVs becomes one of control. Will they feel like they need to control the "specifications" for the environment that serves their application service more explicitly, like they can with a managed hosting or SaaS Hosting provider?

August 31, 2006 3:52 PM
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About hagins

Jeff Hagins has more than 24 years of experience in product marketing, product management, software development, technical operations, service delivery, and software quality. Hagins is currently the Managing Partner for Mural Consulting and a General Partner of Mural Ventures, both companies that focus exclusively on Software-as-a-Service. His career has also included positions as Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Chief Architect, Vice President of Engineering, and Board Member for companies such as Lockheed Martin, J.D. Edwards, TeleComputing, Apptix, Dynix, and SMBLive. Hagins has been active in the Software-as-a-Service industry from the beginning, helping to launch the J.D. Edwards ASP initiative in early 2000, becoming a board member of the ASP Industry Consortium (ASPIC) in 2001, as an advisor to the Computing Technology Industry Association (COMPTIA) Software Services Group, and as an advisor to Microsoft on the Communications & Collaboration Developer Advisory Council. Hagins is currently also a member of the Gerson-Lehrman Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Council of Advisors. Hagins has worked actively over the last 6 years in the Utility Computing and Software-As-A-Service industry with companies such as Microsoft, British Telecom, CSC, Telecom New Zealand, Cable & Wireless, NTT, MCI, Bell Canada, Savvis, and many others. His efforts with these ISVs and Service Providers have focused on overall Go-To-Market Strategy and Execution, Product & Marketing Strategy, Channel Development, Service Design & Architecture, Service Optimization, and OSS/BSS Integration. Hagins' experience in the SaaS industry is unique, having worked as CTO for SaaS ISVs such as SMBLive, as a CTO for pure-play Application Hosters such as Apptix, and even as the CIO for a mid-market company purchasing SaaS offerings (Dynix). He brings a unique perspective on the complete value-chain for SaaS, and in his role as Managing Partner for Mural Consulting is actively working with ISVs and Service Providers of all shapes and sizes to help them define and execute their SaaS strategies.

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