On December 31, 2007 I wrote a post about what 2008 will hold for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In that article I stated that 2008 will be the year the small ISV enters the SaaS market in a big way. It was, and is, my opinion that in order for this to happen, certain barriers to entry had to be removed. For instance, it is one thing to build an application, and it is yet another altogether to architect that system properly for scalability and business continuity.

Additionally, existing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings, especially those that resemble RAD tools in deployed software, require developers to learn and program around proprietary APIs or even worse, learn an entire, also proprietary, programming language. Finally, pricing is generally such that an entrepreneur or start-up that builds a SaaS product and wants to launch into a production-ready environment must shell out a lot of money for dedicated systems at a host or "virtual" systems at a SaaS enabler or other "clustered" type of host.

What if there was a system that SaaS application developers could leverage without changing the way they build their software, that would allow them to rapidly deploy their SaaS or Web 2.0 solution on a platform that can grow with them (elastic) and provide the business continuity that their clients require?

What if the pricing structure was such that you can start for free, deploy a prototype, expand and contract your available resources on-demand, allowing you to instantly scale to handle whatever load is required, always paying only for what you use and nothing more. If this type of system existed, this would be the key to lowering those barriers to entry for small ISVs and would allow that large influx of vertically focused and tight horizontal niche SaaS to come to market as I predicted.

Guess what? It does exist and I've decided to put my money where my mouth is! I've joined Morph Labs, the creators of the Morph Application Platform. Morph Application Platform allows Ruby on Rails developers to quickly (it takes 6 minutes... see this video) deploy an application that leverages grid computing technology (currently using Amazon S3 and EC2) and provides the afore mentioned benefits.

My role with Morph Labs is Business Development Manager and I am going to be building out the user community and affiliate network in the United States. If you are a Ruby on Rails developer, ISV that builds applications in Rails, an offshore/near shore development company, or anyone else that would like to participate in our Beta program, please sign up here. This is your chance to test the system and tell us what you think, request features that don't exist, and generally have a hand in building something necessary for the industry.

Also, if you have a Ruby on Rails or SaaS group and would like us to come show you what the Morph Application Platform is all about and how we believe it can help your developers and entrepreneurs, please give me a shout at lincoln //at// morphlabs //dot// com.

Labels: development, entrepreneurship, SaaS, software, web

Labels: business, development, marketing, networking, sales