Oracle, SAP to Delve in PAAS?

5) A rise in serverless companies with 1000-plus employees. In 2009, the market will start to hear about more and more companies going completely serverless.

My take: In other words, medium to large enterprises will creep into the cloud. Why not? Serena Software, which is increasingly moving to Google Apps via Gmail, has told me it could conceive of being serverless one day. Why wouldn't other high-tech or bleeding-edge companies outside high tech move completely into the cloud? It's the future, though I expect Microsoft's vision of a hybrid model to more accurately reflect IT for the next five years.

6) The rise and fall of the private cloud. While private clouds will continue to generate a significant amount of hype, customers in most cases will realize they are little more than a better data center implementation. They will be valuable for customers who have significant transaction volumes and stringent regulatory or security requirements.

My take: I haven't given much thought to this, to be frank. Appirio's argument makes sense, but should we care? How much of the overall could computing market will the private cloud segment compose?
   
7) Business intelligence (BI) becomes the next functional area to "SAASify. While CRM and HRM applications became poster children for the shift to SAAS these last few years, we'll see the same thing happening with on-demand BI."

My take: Yes! I absolutely agree. Panorama, PivotLink, LucidEra, Business Objects and others are gaining momentum. BI has been such a big market in on-premises software for years. Why wouldn't companies moving to the cloud also want to hook BI to the cloud the same way? There is a bright future here. Again, though, with 2009 as bleak looking as it is, you'll get no finite market figures from me.

8) "SAP or Oracle get into the PAAS [platform as a service] game and start at least talking about a new cloud platform they're building over the next few years."

My take: Oracle and SAP already do some SAAS, but joining Microsoft as a Johnny-come-lately in offering platforms and development environments around their products? That doesn't seem to fit either company's pattern, yet Oracle has such a big legacy of database software that it seems irrational not to offer a cloud database offering to keep Amazon and others from the door. SAP can hardly be accused of being cutting edge, but if it felt threatened enough by the cloud it could offer a big platform for app developers. However, I can't see either Oracle or SAP doing the cloud connections Google, Salesforce.com, Zoho and Amazon Web Services are doing. They'd be more like Microsoft Windows Azure; that is to say, closed ecosystems.

9) Enterprises will figure out how to use social networks. HR and marketing organizations will finally figure out how to utilize social networks in day-to-day operations, as business will come directly through business applications that tap into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks.

My take: I believe this to be true, but I also acknowledge the morass of legal implications associated with using social networks in the enterprise. There must be a number of ingredients in this pie, including responsibility, trust, accountability and common sense.

10) There will be at least one $100 million software product built on Force.com. The myth that it is impossible to build a big business on an on-demand platform will finally be debunked by the emergence of a PAAS-enabled application in 2009 that has the potential for a $100 million run rate.

My take: I disagree. Not in 2009, with the economy sucking wind. Of course, Appirio may have some inside information we don't. Does anyone else see a $100 million product coming out of Force.com next year?