If you're like me, you rely on a host of cloud applications to get your job
done each day. While the convenience and familiarity of apps built for the
web is great, I can't help but notice the difference between each user
interface (UI) I use. Currently, all cloud-based ERP software vendors are
approaching the user interface with their own design style. For users that
work with multiple cloud apps each day, this can be disorienting - not to
mention bad for productivity and usability.
As more products are built for the cloud, I believe that we ought to start
thinking about creating a set of standards for what cloud-based applications
should look and feel like. Getting there won't be easy, so it's time to start
talking about creating these standards today.
Why Should We Create Standards?
Inconsistency in UI design has negative impact on usability and productivity.
It... (more)
Manufacturing software vendors are making aggressive moves to the cloud. In
the past year alone, four vendors rolled out a full suite
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings for the industry. That brings the
current tally of SaaS players in the manufacturing arena to five: Epicor
Express, Infor SyteLine, NetSuite, Plex, and SAP Business ByDesign.
The buzz around the cloud has manufacturers asking if a cloud solution is
right for them. To help answer that question, I'll explore the features and
functionality each vendor offers, and the ideal target market for each. Many
more vendo... (more)
As IBM turned 100 this month, the company received a lot of fanfare and
attention. Amazingly, this tech giant has managed to stay relevant in the
fast-paced world of enterprise technology for a century. Since Big Blue's
birthday, many media analysts have reflected on past achievements and
milestones while others touched on their current innovations. I'm a fan of
the retrospective approach, but I often find it more interesting to think
about where a company is headed rather than where it's been.
In the spirit of forward-looking analysis, I decided to dig into IBM's merger
and acq... (more)
Open source has been a great success for infrastructure software such as
Linux, Apache and MySQL. Here at Software Advice, we've made use of all
three. We've also made extensive use of open source development libraries
like jQuery. For apps, however, we have either rolled our own or deployed
commercial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings.
We're not alone in that decision. Open-source applications have failed to
gain mainstream acceptance. Despite passionate communities and a compelling
value proposition, businesses just aren't buying open-source enterprise
applications. The l... (more)
The primary innovation behind software as a service (SaaS) is the web-based
architecture - users accessing the system through a web browser rather than,
say, a Windows application. Proponents of SaaS have trumpeted the benefits of
this technological shift. Meanwhile, vendors with older client/server
products have evolved their architectures to offer web-based deployment. Some
systems are more elegant than others, but today just about every enterprise
software vendor offers a web access option.
Why then is the new class of SaaS (or cloud) application vendors racing ahead
with gre... (more)
Derek Singleton recently graduated from Occidental College with a degree in political science. He writes about various topics related to ERP software and covers the manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain management software markets.
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