Mutton dressed up as lamb
Are SalesForce and Netsuite the new pretenders?
I haven't piped up on SalesForce's Apex or Nestuite's SuiteFlex but there is a lot of blogging going on around it at the moment so I won't hold back any longer partticularly after reading David Terrar's SuiteFlex and Apex providing business process customization for SaaS which also points to others including Phil's excellent No Software! But more programming language .
So for me it is simple, if businesses are to avoid the issue of the last software/I.T. legacy wave they all need to be able to do a few simple things:
- Own their own data
- Own their own processes
- Have a choice on the when and where of 1 and 2
If a business cannot do this they are locked in just the same as before, as Erik Engbrecht says in Phil's comments Lipstick on a Pig - 'Same claims, new pig, yet somehow the same as the old pig.' He is so right..
If you bury your data in SalesForce/NetSuite silos and integrate your business and process logic inside Apex/SuiteFlex engines you will have blown requirements 1,2 and destroyed your chances of 3 all together.
And yes I have heard the arguments with why they need to create Apex et al.. to me these arguments mean the the services they are propping up are based on broken and tired architectures, 'Mutton dressed up as lamb', to build on Erik's theme. These architectures are good for the new vendors and bad for the customers, the best solutions to these issues would be ones that made it better for the customers and that sustained requirements 1,2 and 3. Show em that and then I will be excited, enthusiastic and passionate about it.
I would really love someone to to actually prove to me that 1,2 and 3 aren't possible, or at least come up will a compelling argument as to why (architectually) these requirements cannot work.
Ironically I think we are on the verge of really solving some big business and technology problems, lets not blow it by trying to own the customer again please..
