The second article in a series about designing multi-tenant applications identifies three distinct approaches for creating data architectures. (25 printed pages), including: Three Approaches to Managing Multi-Tenant Data, Choosing an Approach, and Realizing Multi-Tenant Data Architecture.

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Quick video presentation of the challenges existing enterprise software providers face in transitioning to SaaS, cloud computing and managed services markets, including the 5C’s of Failure: Company Culture, Cannibalization, Commoditization, Channel Conflict and Customer Confusion…

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Looking to build a business plan for your SaaS company, but don’t know how to create the right financial model?

Get best practices and insider tips first-hand from SaaS finance experts and actual investors on what financial metrics matter and how they affect your business plan, ability to raise capital, and long-term profitability.

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Presentation from 2008 SaaS Summit that covers Omnitures stages of evolution and introduces the “SaaS Magic Number”

Omniture Stages of Evolution: Product – Sell like crazy; Prove you can sell; – Build team; QBSRs – Retain; QBSRs – Marketing; QBSRs – Efficiency of Hardware; QBSRs – More Engineers and more QBSRs – Most Important Investment Metric – “Magic Number”

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This post comes from reading some blog entries like the post our friend Abe Sultan of Apprenda wrote for Datamation – How to Fail Miserably as a SaaS Company and my own conversations with software company executives. Before anybody says it – it is not every way there is to fail at SaaS. And like any limited list covering a big subject – the items are over broad and not necessarily indicative of the most common ways to fail.

But that said, these are the things that really irritate me and I’m sure irritate those who have lived these errors – as happens in the life of an entrepreneur. So, if you are or are considering offering a product with the SaaS business and delivery model, you might want to consider about the common trip points mentioned in this article…

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As the new year and decade get underway, here are a few of the areas of the cloud computing market which I think will be important competitive battlefields for established and emerging players

1) Collaboration Wars

2) Business-Oriented Social Networks

3) Platforms-as-a-Service Wars

4) Cloud Governance…

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Steve Blank is a respected voice in Silicon Valley for good reason. He writes and speaks from a deep well of experience and insight. I’ve never found anyone who could put the current trend towards the “consumerization” of online software into an actionable context better.

What I’ve linked to for this “classic blog post” is actually not one post but instead a whole category of Steve’s posts that highlight an approach to product development that is strongly user-driven and fits particularly well for the Internet delivery model of SaaS products. It is a key part of the whole “Lean Start Up” philosophy that is gaining a lot of attention because it answers the questions around what is a viable roadmap for a SaaS product.

If you’re developing or considering a SaaS product, I strongly suggest sampling the posts in this series – there is a lot of good information here.

[Recommended by By Michael Dunham at http://blog.sciodev.com ]

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