Cloud computing and Software-as-a-service (Saas) applications have been growing in popularity since the economic downturn, hence, many product development companies turned to us (MapleWorks is a software development outsourcing service provider) to accelerate commercializing their products. Even with the uptick in the economy, I don’t expect to see demand slow because, depending on your end customers’ goals, cloud computing/SaaS can allow them to reduce costs, reduce their IT footprints, and reduce the headaches that come with managing infrastructure.

To achieve the end goals of your customers, here’s the top 10 technical considerations for planning your SaaS development project.

1. Latency. In typical circumstances, SaaS applications work fine. However; as a hypothetical scenario, if two to four seconds of delay are introduced into the connection, and 100 requests are normally handled, will this affect quality or usability? What will be the customer’s threshold for latency?

2. Reliability. The Internet is still not as reliable as circuit-based networks. But it’s still essential to make sure that reliability is high. This is especially important for mission-critical applications. What will be your customers’ requirements for reliability?

3. Redundancy. One of the value propositions for SaaS is proactive maintenance versus reactive maintenance. In the same vein, customers look to SaaS as their disaster recovery plan. Redundancy and recovery is the responsibility of the SaaS vendor. How sophisticated will your redundancy and backup services be?

4. Scalability. Scalability is a key point of moving to the cloud. As an enterprise grows—or shrinks—a cloud hosted SaaS gives them the ability to scale appropriately. Has scalability been designed into your SaaS application?

5. Compatibility/standards. Standards are a challenge. While it’s impossible to future proof the SaaS application that you develop, at least try. Look at trends and think five years in advance.

6. Partitioning. When there are many users sharing the same resource, logical partitioning helps to guarantee security. Can your SaaS application be partitioned?

7. Security. Confidentiality is a consideration in SaaS applications—and typically entails a high degree of complexity. It’s essential to ensure that you offer the appropriate level of security. And, this is especially important for mission-critical applications or sensitive data. What level of security will your customers require of your service?

8. Data migration. Customers don’t want to be handcuffed should they wish to move their data elsewhere. There have been plenty of sad stories on this topic. How will you deal with data portability?

9. Usability. If everyone in the enterprise is to adopt your SaaS application, it must be intuitive and easy to use. Will a usability expert test your SaaS application?

10. Total cost of ownership (TCO). Your customers turn to SaaS to deliver against their expectations for reduced IT infrastructure costs, decreased maintenance costs, on-demand scalability, and utility pricing. Will your SaaS application enable your target customers to lower their TCO?

That’s my top 10. What would you add to this list?

Tablets are getting a lot of attention, so the time is ripe for software development companies to deliver Tablet applications to consumers hungry to add value to their Tablet purchases. (Read the report summary on page 2 of “The Rise of the Internet Tablet: The Keys to Success” from In-Stat research (February 2010)). The time is ripe not only because consumer demand is on the rise, but because the market is not yet overcrowded.

Having developed apps for Smartphones, MapleWorks plunged headlong into developing a Tablet app. It’s now available. Called MapleWorks MaplePaint™, it’s a note taking and drawing application for Android-based Tablets. Here are some screen grabs.

If you’re a software development company trying to figure out how to deliver a Tablet app, you’ll find that the challenges are similar to those you faced with developing Smartphone apps; e.g. physical constraints and operating system quirks. Want to learn more about the challenges of developing mobile apps? Read our white paper, Mobile Applications Development: Leveraging Experience to Maximize Gain.

Several prospects have begun to realize that they can no longer stand on the sidelines of product development and succeed in 2010.  At the same time, they lack confidence that the economy has stabilized and still have concerns about cash availability.

Since they are at this crossroads, they have chosen to engage MapleWorks rather than hire full time staff to work on new product innovation. This way, they get the best of both worlds – MapleWorks’ expertise and experience, without the liability of full time staff.  They can also reduce their need to use cash reserves for capital equipment.

Examples of these exciting new opportunities for MapleWorks include developing an element management system for a video server, developing a voice distribution system for a cloud voice over internet protocol (VoIP) supplier, porting an enterprise application to iPod and Android smartphones, and a peer-to-peer communication system for remote monitoring.

There was one bright spot on the horizon as reported in the MHT on July 18, 2009. The second quarter of 2009 appeared to mark a turnaround for venture capital investing, as total dollars invested in venture-backed companies increased over the previous quarter for the first time since Q2, 2008, according to numbers released Saturday by Dow Jones VentureSource.

Nationwide, across all sectors, venture-backed companies took in $5.3 billion in Q2, 2009, spread across 595 funding deals, the financial tracking organization reported. The total dollars represented a 31.7 percent increase over Q1’s dismal $4 billion invested – the greatest Q2 over Q1 increase in the past five years.  Nationally, numbers remained down compared to last year’s second quarter, according to VentureSource.  Overall venture dollars invested dropped 36.7 percent, to $5.3 billion.  IT investment dropped 41.4 percent, to $1.9 billion.  Healthcare investment fell 14.3 percent, to $2.2 billion, and renewable energy investment dropped 75.4 percent, to $220.6 million, quarter over quarter.

(Paul Gasparro is Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development for MapleWorks – the smart choice for on-shore software development.)

Start with the fact that only in North America do developers work in an iterative way with the marketing department to develop a product that meets the demands of the customer base. Going offshore means you are with an inexperienced work force that only knows how to build to specification. No room for deviation or creativity. Products just don’t get developed that way in the US, so the resulting build to spec product has to be built over and over again until finally it is market ready.

Compound this problem with the fact that the people building the product are unfamiliar with the technology and the problem becomes even more severe. Not to mention the fact that the people that started on the project probably are not the ones that are working on it when it is finished, since employee turnover can reach 40%-50% per year in many offshore locations. Oh by the way, did I mention that the language is different, and since the time zones are totally out of synch, there is limited real time communication to keep things on track. Then there is the management issue. Since you are dealing with an inexperienced development team thousands of miles and many time zones away, you need to dedicate staff to managing the team. Also, that manager must spend a lot of time in the foreign country, away from home and family, not doing much for employee morale back home. Hopefully, once the product does get built, your intellectual property will not get stolen and find its way to a position on the shelf next to yours at a fraction of the price.

Unit labor costs of doing business offshore is certainly lest than doing development onshore. But you get what you pay for, which are a big migraine and not much more.

(Paul Gasparro is Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development for MapleWorks – the smart choice for on-shore software development. He posted the above blog as a response at http://www.trybpo.com/offshore-vs-onshore-outsourcing-pros-and-cons/)

Where are the technical writing jobs? They aren’t in Ottawa. From what others in the field are telling me, the tech writing jobs aren’t in Seattle or Dallas-Fort Worth or the Silicon Valley or points in between. From the beginning of April through the end of June, there were four positions for technical writers advertised on workopolis.com in Ottawa. I know five senior technical writers who are looking for work. Not one of them landed one of those jobs. Only one of the five has a casual job, she is pouring concrete lawn ornaments. From words to concrete, that’s quite a career change.

The reality of being self-employed
Many technical writers, like others in the writing field, are self-employed. Self-employed people who are without work do not draw employment insurance benefits and are not counted in unemployment statistics. These non-working self-employed people also do not qualify for government-funded retraining programs. Non-working self-employed people are not dining out, having their clothes dry cleaned, picking up a loaf of bread at the bakery, going on vacations, or buying new cars, electronics, or houses. More jobs are affected by offshoring than those directly made redundant.

Business owners don’t blame the self-employed for a dip in your monthly or annual revenues; cast the blame where it belongs: managers at those companies that wanted to please their stockholders by reducing costs, regardless of the price to North American workers and the North American economy. When management started to view employees as “bodies warming chairs,” often the first body to be given a pink slip (or in some cases, sent an email that the person’s services were no longer needed), was the one that the manager perceived as contributing the least value to the project—often the technical writer.

These managers “discovered and exploited” the labor markets in low-cost nations to cut labor costs. The managers of a Canadian flagship company were so good at reducing costs through offshore outsourcing, the company shall soon be no more; stockholders will not receive any financial rewards from misguided decision to take jobs to China or India; and the labor pool of skilled and talented people available in Ottawa will grow. But where are the jobs for these talented people? IBM recently initiated a program called “Project Match” for its redundant North American workers to relocate to in India, China, and Brazil (http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000389) has drawn heavy criticism in the business world. Employees who accepted this offer would work for the reduced wages in the lower-cost countries. Not to mention the difficulty to return to North America if they lost their newfound jobs.

© Copyright 2009 K. Prichard and Capital Writing Services. All Rights Reserved

Capital Writing Services is located in the Ottawa area. To contact CWS, E-mail cws@ripnet.com.

About the blogger: Krys Prichard, President, Capital Writing Services, has 20 years’ experience in the technical and business communications fields.

Two feet (9.44 cm) of snow fell in Denver over the weekend. I called my contact to ask if we should reschedule our Tuesday meeting.  He told me “don’t worry be happy” it will melt before you arrive. By the time I got there the snow was gone and the temperature was 75 F (22 C) and sunny. On Monday the Dow Jones fell 300 points because people thought that the BoA results were too good. On Tuesday it rose over 120 points beause Geitner told Wall Street “don’t worry, be happy” the banks are strong. Things change very fast in the world today. Part of the reason for the change is attitude. Read the Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Many people are talking about the demise of the Venture Capital industry. In fact, investments in the first quarter($3.9B)in the US were 50% lower than in the first quarter in 2008. However when you look for the silver lining it actually exists. Scott Austin of VentureWire Alert does find it.  In the April 21 edition of Venture Dispatch he makes 3 excellent points about the recent quarter. First, the percentage of investment money going into startups has remained relatively constant (39%) since 2002. Second, not all regions of the country have been hit hard.  In fact, New England was down only 15%. Finally, the VC’s are flushed with cash having raised $24.7B in 2008, which has to be put to work.

So as the saying goes “don’t worry be happy”. The high tech industry will soon be vibrant again and  you will begin to turn on your product development faucet. When that happens, you can be sure that MapleWorks will be ready to support your needs. We have been using this economic slump to build cash reserves and strengthen our staff. We are in a position to turn on as fast as you need us.

(Paul Gasparro is Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development for MapleWorks – the smart choice for on-shore software development.)

For anyone who had the opportunity to read my latest newsletter, you’ve already seen this title, but let me take a moment to expand upon it. It is springtime in New England, so there is a sense of rebirth in the air already, and maybe you’re thinking that I took my exuberance too far.

I was wondering the same thing. Really though, it does feel like there is a small sense of relief in the high tech community, even if it’s not necessarily right here in the Northeast. Normally, there is a regional nature to business, particularly in high tech. However, over the past year or so, everyone has been sharing the same sense of doom. Lately, though, the daily alerts that I’ve been receiving from Venture Deal have been strongly pointing to a resurgence of funding for California companies.

So that’s one data point. As I surfed a little more, I found that Cisco is buying up companies again. They just purchased Tidal Software and Pure Digital Technologies. I also found that VC firms based in the San Francisco Bay area are reporting more confidence again. Lastly, to bolster a general sense that the banking world will survive, Wells Fargo reported a record quarterly profit, giving some hope that the deterioriation in the financial sector is slowing if not outright reversing.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Who can really say for sure? What I know is this – if the world is going to continue turning and businesses are going to continue running, innovation will also continue to occur and software projects will still need to be architected and developed. For me, at least, this speaks well of our future.

Dawn McGee is a Business Development Manager for MapleWorks – the smart choice for onshore software development.

When someone asks Bert Hill of the Ottawa Citizen, “why Canada?”, his answer is simple, “a highly-educated workforce, R&D tax credits that cut up to 70 per cent (of the cost of ) developing technology, and backed by the world’s soundest banking system.”

Canada always comes out on top of any survey for outsourcing when evaluated for language, infrastructure, culture, education, security, etc. just take a look at the recent Gartner report. The only place it does not excel is in labor costs.

The economy is almost in a freefall and governments are in a rush to put money into the economy to create jobs. Canada is ahead of the game with Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED), Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), Quebec’s eBusiness, etc. IP incentive programs. These benefits are being passed onto US customers in the form of reduced costs, with the result being that Canada now leads in total cost of ownership

In a research report published by Black Book Research and Brown-Wilson Group, ranking the safest countries in the world to do outsourcing—India ranked in the bottom ten, Canada, the top ten.

Talking to a prospect the other day, he said he really was not interested in the price, he was interested in expertise. I AGREED. I told him MapleWorks engineers have an average of 15 years experience with all of our DNA in network communications—HE AGREED.

The economy has placed ever more pressure on companies to save money while avoiding risks. Offshoring is adventurous and risky. Onshoring (MapleWorks) offers services that provide an innovative, high quality solution on time, without the geopolitical risks of offshoring and at significantly lower cost than US development.

It is hard to believe anyone that says they have not been impacted by the downturn.

(Paul Gasparro is Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development for MapleWorks – the smart choice for on-shore software development.)