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SaaS: Enterprise collaboration and Data Sharing
Despite all the whiz bang features of AJAX and Web 2.0, thin clients still really can’t compete on features and ease of use with native thick clients. But one area where thin-clients can beat out thick clients is in being able to offer collaborative capabilities. That spells an opportunity to SaaS vendors since they deploy their solutions to thin clients.
David Linthicum offered up the example of a SaaS product called EA WebModeler from a company called Agilense. EA WebModeler provides toos to graphically model relationships in enterprise business and IT environments. It lets you construct a model of today’s layout and helps you model and plan for how the layout will change in time.
There are collaborative advantages with EA WebModeler because the software is available on-demand. It’s easy to share models that you’ve made, but you can also browse a shared model repository. Someone else may have already created a model that’s similar to your environment. Find it, Copy it, Hack it up.
EA WebModeler already has the concept of social aspect surrounding shared data. Assigning Digg or Amazon-like ratings to public models in the repository would be powerful.
Within the enterprise, WebModeler models can be opened up for sharing with team members, partners, and vendors to allow joint collaborations on the models. SaaS is attractive to small companies because it can make sophisticated software available to small shops and businesses that would otherwise have been priced out of the equation with traditional software models.
