The Software as a Service (SaaS) market has experienced tremendous growth over the past year. However, ISVs are challenged to create an online presence as quickly as possible, so they can start generating revenue. Fujitsu's ISV Cloud Program includes not only pre-configured cloud business services for online service sales, but also a complete Fujitsu Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. This makes it easy and fast for ISVs to migrate business applications into the cloud.
Dr. Stefan Ried, Principal Analyst at independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc. says: «Fujitsu is adding canned platform capabilities - such as billing services, user registration, the creation of different pricing models, and other horizontal PaaS (Platform as a Service) capabilities - to its infrastructure offering. This allows software vendors to really focus on the business application. Unlike many PaaS offerings, Fujitsu also enables ISVs to migrate existing Java-based applications into a managed SaaS Application.» (Quoted from: Stefan Ried's Forrester Blog posting on February 28, 2011 entitled: «Cloud Computing Disrupts Business Models: Fujitsu Reacts With A PaaS Strategy For ISVs'»).
Fujitsu's first 10 ISV Cloud Program partners, including Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Candor Technologies Group, and iTAC, are realizing the competitive benefits of Software as a Service. Within just a few weeks - compared to the more normal tens of months - these companies were assisted with a resource-efficient cloud transition, based on existing code and development tools.
Andre Kiehne, Vice President Services at Fujitsu Technology Solutions explains, «The advantages of the SaaS model are obvious: low capital investment and predictable operating costs. On the other hand, ISVs are still concerned about data security - loss, abuse and availability. We listened to them and took their needs into consideration when designing this platform, that's why our ISV Cloud Program eliminates these headaches by offering secure hosting in a monitored data center.»
The ISV Cloud Program will comprise a complete ISV eco system containing Fujitsu's Infrastructure as a Service
(currently available), Platform as a Service, and an ISV Marketplace, the new elements to be rolled out during 2011.
The ISV Marketplace is, designed to broaden market access and to enable participating ISVs to gain further competitive benefits and commercial economies of scale. For example, ISV's offerings already include a broad range of attractive pay-per-use software products for end customers:
- Customer Relationship Management
- Enterprise Resource Planning
- Manufacturing Execution Systems
- Product Lifecycle Management The ISV Cloud Program is currently available in Germany and Austria, and will continue to roll out internationally.
More information is available on Fujitsu's ISV Cloud Program Website under http://ts.fujitsu.com/bes.
Partner Quotes
Siemens IT Solutions and Services - Dynamic Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Service Under the name Dynamic PLM Service, Siemens offers IT solutions and services in combination with the ISV Cloud Program from Fujitsu, to provide a unique product lifecycle management platform via the cloud that gives customers a highly efficient application.
According to Rainer Mewaldt, Head of Global PLM Outsourcing Services, Siemens IT Solutions and Services GmbH:
«If we had been forced to produce this sort of solution ourselves, the outlay would have been somewhere in the region of one man-year. By using Business Enablement Services from Fujitsu, the overhead is significantly lower and, more importantly, the solution is available for use far earlier on.»
Candor Technologies Group Delivering CRM Solutions to a Wider Circle of Customers Candor Technologies Group, a software house specializing in SaaS and cloud operations, needed more efficient billing. Fujitsu's ISV Cloud program provides the business functionality it needs, such as online brand presence and sales catalogue, plus a pricing model that maps to invoicing. Partnering with Fujitsu to provide these functions, Candor becomes more effective by focusing its development efforts on its core offerings. Fujitsu's preconfigured services also include user registration, customer and subscription management and billing and credit card or direct debit services.
Gerd Leszinski, CEO of Candor Europe explains: «Thanks to the ISV Cloud Program from Fujitsu, we are able to provide our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions to a much wider circle of customers. Both sides benefit from the integrated automation and significant acceleration of the processes.»
iTAC's Shortened Path to the Cloud
iTAC Software AG is a leading provider of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). iTAC develops, implements, maintains, and provides support for its platform-independent iTAC.MES.Suite in manufacturing companies world-wide which help to ensure its customers optimize their «effective production.»
Another satisfied partner, David Burger, CEO, iTAC says: «Supported by cloud-based business services and infrastructure from Fujitsu, we expect to access customers that we could not have reached with our existing solution.
Fujitsu's offerings have considerably shortened our path to the cloud. Firstly, its offerings can be immediately deployed and, secondly, they integrate seamlessly with our existing products.»