Managing Cloud-computing based Products

What’s different to On-Premise products

My background Over 15 years of Managing Products

• Product Management/Marketing

– ICL Enterprise Middleware, Peerlogic, IONA Technologies PLC, Am-Beo, Prime Carrier, Axiologix

• Launched On-Demand in 2005

• Cloud-based model supporting majority of customers

– Over 5 million records processed daily

• Ongoing revenue stream established and stable

Cloud-based delivery

• Software as a Service – SaaS

• The functionality of the product delivered over the Internet

• Software is not present on the Customer’s site nor not installed on the Customer’s servers

• Software can easily be updated

• Huge economics of scale & different models – One server installation can serve many customer

• Servers & infrastructure don’t have to be yours

Methods of delivery

App1

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User1

App2

dB 2

User2

App

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User1 User n

App

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User1 User n

Single Tenanted Multi-Tenanted

Pitfalls of Cloud based delivery

• It’s still a Product that requires Managing – Roadmaps & Releases (Major, Minor, Bug-fixes)

– But faster, given the ease of delivery

• But you have to now manage it’s delivery – Server infrastructure (Reliability, Accessibility, Security)

– Internet Connectivity

• Customer’s expect all functionality to there on Day 1

• No upfront PLC payments to fund feature development

• Supports less customer friction

• When to make scaling changes

Benefits of Cloud based delivery

• Faster Customer on-boarding

• Support model is easier – Issues can be replicated locally

– Updates applied faster

• Can support lower customer touch models

• Infrastructure can change – Can use PaaS or IaaS, Managed Servers or owned Servers

– Upgrade paths, Maintenance and outage schedules

• Product installations can support many customers – Either single tenanted or multi-tenanted deployments

The role of Product in the Mix

• Price is a key element of the Marketing Mix – Not just the basic 4 P’s, but the 9 P’s for Service

delivery • Product • Price • Promotion • Place • People • Process • Physical Evidence • Packaging • Payment

Managing Cloud-based Products

• Offers improved deployment models – No longer reliant on Customer’s hardware & OS stacks

– Can support many different customers

– Deployment configuration options

– Can scale

• As PM, you do have more to manage & more decision points – Product & delivery platform

– Release cycles, upgrade programs for both product & platform

• Recurring revenue stream – greater market value?