后云技术时代Salesforce将被颠覆 一代SaaS产品恐成绝唱翻译:人称T客
为什么我们要把SaaS产品按代划分呢?我们把SaaS接过ASP的接力棒后称为一代产品,当时的SaaS是互联网时代下的产品,以Salesforce为代表的厂商如雨后春笋般涌出,如国内的Xtools、八百客、百会等,但是在移动互联网时代,无论从底层开发还是产品架构思想都缺少移动基因,而基于Html5和移动云平台设计的移动+云端解决方案的SaaS产品我们称为二代产品,比如外勤365、明道、纷享、仁科互动等企业社交类产品,他们在开发和产品设计上,全方位的考虑了移动因素,基至像外勤365的底层采用主流MEAP开发应用平台,省去了企业日后在移动信息化布署和异构系统间的整合难题,而一代产品根本没有云+移动的端到端概念,这也注定他们将成绝唱。下面本文将从后云技术说起。
后云技术是一种新的创建网络服务和应用的方法,与云计算不同的是,我们不再需要服务器或是数据中心,能够将部署和运营一个商务应用的成本降低一百倍!
一次地震带来的后期影响往往比地震本身带来的破坏更加有力,对科技来说也是如此。每天都会有一些具有隐形“创造性破坏”特质的新兴科技出现在市场上。随着时间的推移,将在市场上触发巨大的变化。我们将在这个专栏中识别这些正处于孵化期的科技并预言他们对未来IT行业体系的影响。正如Alan Kay所说,”the best way to predict the future is to invent it”(预测未来最好的办法就是创造它!)。所以在这里,我的将介绍一个有希望通过现存的技术创造出来的新产品,进而去设想该产品长期商务化发展的结果。
后云时代 ,FreeForce将颠覆Salesforce
后云技术是一种新的创建网络服务和应用的方法,类似于云计算。但是,与云计算不同的是,我们不再需要服务器或是数据中心。相比较传统云计算而言,这个新理论能够将部署和运营一个商务应用的成本降低一百倍!接下来就要讲到的是如何做到这一点。
离线 HMTL5 万维网联盟(World Wide WebConsortium,又称”W3C理事会”) 在2008年为所谓的”离线网络应用“定义了一个规范说明。这个说明中,定义了一个需要被网络浏览器留存的文档列表。也就是说用户可以使用他的智能手机访问一个网站,然后访问另外一个网站,将手机设置成飞行模式,再回到第一个网站……还是可以正常浏览使用。 你可以用这个Task Manager 应用试一试离线HTML5。打开一个新的窗口(用火狐或Chrome网络浏览器),关闭你电脑的网络连接。尝试刷新此应用,发现页面还是能够加载。如果你再多玩玩这个应用,你会发现它已经包含了可以搜索记录的数据库。你可以随意进行添加或修改记录等操作。这个应用程序工作的原理是使用在网络浏览器里面运行的全部javascritpts。一旦应用被加载了,无需再加载一次,除非发行了新的版本。
所有的计算都在你的电脑或者智能手机上完成,而无需访问网络。这个方法比任何方法都要可靠,特别是当你旅行时或是到数据连接质量非常差的地方时。 FreeForce 设想现在一个年轻的中国青年在开发一个类似于Salesforce.com这样新的离线HTML5应用。Salesforce是一个非常著名的客户关系管理(CRM)应用。它同样也是世界上排名第一,年收入超过30亿美元的云计算服务商。
设想现在这个中国青年将他的CRM应用,在GPL的许可下,作为开源软件发布,就像Linus Torvalds在20多年前对GNU/Linux操作系统Kernel所做的一样。暂且让我们将这个应用称作”FreeForce”.只需要短短几年的时间让大家来比较FreeForce和SalesForce.com. FreeForce是开源的并可以离线运行。Salesforce.com不是开源的并且需要连接到Salesforce集团的服务器上。FreeForce是由一个中国青年开发并由一整个社区的贡献者根据用户的建议来迅速即时地添加功能。Salesforce.com则是一个由传统企业通过定期发布新版本来开发,通常忽略用户需求,而使用其分销渠道发行的应用。
谁是赢家 ?目前FreeForce,还只是我们虚构的一个产品。我们希望SalesForce.com不会犯微软在20年前犯的一样的错误,该错误导致了微软在企业服务器市场上的失败,从而让GNU/Linux统治了这个市场。
然而,如果FreeForce是存在的,如果SalesForce.com和微软一样犯了错,历史告诉我们:FreeForce一定会赢得这场竞争。
经济分析家在同一个方向也做了总结。创建FreeForce所需的资本包含:一个可以承载几个HTML5静态文档的微型服务器。FreeForce的运营成本是:一些全职的开发者,负责将由社区用户提交的补丁进行合并。总体算来,就是100欧的初始投资加上每年50,000欧元用来支付给开发者的人工成本。
相比而言,SalesForce.com的成本包括了:数据中心,系统管理员,大规模开发团队,翻译人员,销售人员,后台支持人员等等。在过去的10年里,SalesForce.com的累计损失已经超过了10亿美元。
更令人吃惊的是两种商务模式中边际成本的差别。在”FreeForce”的例子中,不管用户数量是多少,成本都保持不变。也就是说FreeForce是属于零边际成本的商务模式。而在SalesForce.com的例子中,越多的用户,意味着越多的成本。也就是说SalesForce.com是属于非零边际成本的商务模式。
由于”零边际成本”商务模式总是赢家,如果不采用一个相似的商务模式,SalesForce.com不会有未来。
这不是痴人说梦!
“Freeforce”模式是否好的太不真实了呢?这是否意味着所有的云计算服务都将消失呢?
可以确定的是,后云时代的HTML5理论将在接下来的10年内引起一个巨大的市场混乱.但还是会给云储存服务商留下一些机会,至少对于一些不愿意在家里使用服务器做备份的用户来说是如此。事实上,像七牛或Dropbox这样的服务商与HTML5应用合作的非常默契,这都要归功于像JIO 或RemoteStorage这样的Javascript库.同时,对于生产类似Rikomagic,基于Rockchip芯片的微型服务器的硬件厂商来说,也将会产生新的机遇。一些公司日益拒绝云储存供应商,特别是在像德国这样的国家,在揭发了美国政府是如何监视德国政要之后。专家们甚至开始质疑加密效率。
对于大数据服务商来说也会有一些商机,尽管大数据对于大多数公司来说是一个从较远地方迁移来的概念。只要想一想,整个中央银行的数据库都能被储存在一个先进的智能手机中。(我知道这个是因为我曾为中央银行工作过)。
总的说来,离线HTML5向我们展示了基于云服务和传统服务器理念的企业IT将会如何逐渐消失。我们并不是唯一有此预言的人,Google 最近的战略就是集中在他们自己的 Chrome离线应用的技术指标上,有一个超过150名工程师的团队在为此工作。Mozilla基金会也已经为火狐OS离线HTML5应用创建了他们自己的技术指标。
Bridges 已经有了不同的版本:万维网联盟离线应用可以被转换成Chrome离线应用。Chrome离线应用可以被转换成安卓或iOS应用。不同版本之间的区别还不是非常的大。
后云时代即将迎来系列颠覆性革命
后云时代是我们后IT时代的第一个里程碑。它不仅对商务应用有潜在的巨大影响,对这个行业其他方面也有非常大的影响。
现如今,一个Chrome浏览器的扩展就可以让你的浏览器摇身一变成为网络服务器, 一个基于网络浏览器的端对端的新型网络能够使所有的个人设备无缝对接交流并从你的手机,电视,路由器上复制你的个人数据。
在我们接下来的后IT时代重大事件中,我们将设想后云时代如何改变IT行业并带来后PC时代,后路由器时代,后ERP时代,后大数据时代,后浏览器时代,后服务器时代,后互联网时代,后网络时代等等。
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英文好的可以自已看原文:
Aftercloud era, How will Freeforce override Salesforce
The Aftershocks of an earthquake sometimes produce more changes to the landscape than the initial shock. Same goes for technology. Everyday, disrupting technologies are introduced on the market, barely visible. But after years, some trigger massive changes to the market. We try in this chronicle to identify how current technologies will impact future corporate IT. Quoting Alan Kay, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”. Each blog post will thus describe a – hopefully – new imaginary product that could be created with existing technologies. We then envisage the long term business consequences of this product. This chronicle is open to your thoughts. Tell us about technologies you have identified and we will tell about you. And if you would like to create a startup based on any of the ideas we present, feel relaxed: we did not file any patent. We could actually even support you, financially or technically if you provide us a business plan.
The After Chronicles are written by JP Smets, CEO of Nayukeji startup company in Shanghai Free Trade Zone (Wai Gao Cao). Nayukeji operates an HTML5 appstore (www.officejs.com) and publishes an open source ERP/CRM (www.erp5.com).
Chronicle 1: the AfterCloud
The AfterCloud is a new way to create Web services and applications that are similar to Cloud Computing. However, unlike Cloud Computing, no server and no datacenter is required. This novel approach can reduce by a factor of 100 the cost of deploying and operating a business applications compared to traditional Cloud Computing. Here is how.
Offline HMTL5
The World Wide Web Consortium has defined in 2008 a specification for so-called “Offline Web Applications”. Under this specification, one defines a list of files that must be persisted by the Web browser. This means that a user can visit a Web site with his smartphone, visit another Web site, set his phone in Airplane mode, go back to the first web site… and it still works.
You can experiment offline HTML5 yourself with this Task Manager application. Open it a new window (with Firefox or Chrome web browser), turn off network on your computer. Try to reload the application. The page will load. If you play a bit with the application, you will find out that it has includes a database that can search records. You can add records, change them, etc.
The way this application actually works is by using javascripts that run entirely inside the Web browser. Once the application is loaded, there is no need to load it again, unless a new version is published. All computation can thus happen on your laptop or on your smartphone, without accessing network. This approach is actually more reliable than anything else, especially during travel or in cities where data connectivity is poor.
FreeForce
Imagine now that a young Chinese teenager starts developing a new Offline HMTL5 that does what an application like Salesforce.com does. Salesforce is a very popular customer relationship management (CRM) application. It is also the No 1 cloud computing service in the world, with more than 3 billion dollar yearly revenue.
Imagine now that this young Chinese teenager provides his CRM application as Free Software, under the GPL license, just like Linus Torvalds did more than 20 years ago for the GNU/Linux operating system kernel. Let us call the application “FreeForce”.
It will only a take a few years before everyone compares FreeForce and SalesForce.com. FreeForce is free and runs offline. Salesforce.com is not free and requires to connect to the servers of Salesforce corporation. FreeForce is developped by a young Chinese teenager with a community of contributors who quickly add features based on user suggestions. Salesforce.com is developed by a traditional corporation that releases new versions from time to time and that tends to ignore user requests that are passed through its distribution channel 。
Who wins ?
FreeForce currently does not exist. Hopefully, SalesForce.com will not do the same mistakes as Microsoft did 20 years ago, mistakes that lead in the case Microsoft to its failure on the enterprise server market > and to the domination of GNU/Linux on that market.
However, if FreeForce existed and if SalesForce.com did the same mistakes as Microsoft, history tells us that FreeForce would surely win.
Economic analysis concludes in the same direction. The capital required to produce FreeForce consists of: a micro-server that hosts a few HTML5 static files.The operating costs of FreeForce are: a few full time developer who merge patches submitted to him by a community of users. Overall,this is 100 ? capital investment plus 50,000 ? per year for this developer. Compare this to SalesForce.com expenses: data centers,system administrators, large developer team, translators, sales people, support people, etc. Over the last 10 years, SalesForce.com has accumulated losses for more than one billion dollar.
What is also striking is the different between the two business models in terms of marginal cost. In the case of “FreeForce”, expenses remain equal whatever the number of users. This means that FreeForce is based on a zero marginal cost business model. In the case of SalesForce.com, the more users, the more expenses. This means that SalesForce.com is based on a non zero marginal cost business model.
Since “zero marginal cost” business models always win, there actually no future to Salesforce.com unless they adopt a similar business model.
Too Good to Be True ?
Is this too good to be true? Are all Cloud Computing services going to disappear?
For sure, the HTML5 approach of the AfterCloud will create in the next 10 years a major market disruption. But there will still be some opportunities remaining for Cloud storage services, at least for users who do not wish to keep a server at home for backup. Services like Qiniu or Dropbox work actually quite well with HTML5 applications thanks to Javascript libraries such as JIO or RemoteStorage.
There will be also an renewed opportunity for hardware vendors that produce nano-servers such as Rikomagic based on Rockchip. Some companies reject increasingly Cloud storage providers, especially in countries like Germany after people discovered how US government was spying German chancellor. Even encryption efficiency is now questioned by specialists. There could also be still some opportunity for big data services, although big data is a far fetched term for most companies. Just consider the whole database of a Central Bank can fit in the memory of a modern Smartphone (I know this because I work for Central Bank).
Overall, Offline HTML5 shows that many Cloud services and traditional server based approaches of enterprise IT are meant to disappear. We are not alone to envision such a future.
Google recent strategy has focuses on its own specification for Chrome offline applications with a team of more than 150 engineers backing this effort. The Mozilla foundation has also created its own specification for Firefox OS offline HTML5 applications.
Bridges already exist between different formats: W3C offline applications can be converted to Chrome offline applications. Chrome offline applications can be converted to Android or iOS applications.
Differences between the different formats are not that huge still.
What Else ?
The AfterCloud is our first chronicle. It has huge potential impact not only for business applications but also for the rest of the industry.
Nowadays, a Chrome extension turns your browser into an Web server , a new kind of peer-to-peer network based on your Web browser can make all personal device communicate seamlessly and replicate your personal data from your phone, to your TV, to your router.
In our next chronicles, we will imagine how the AfterCloud can change the IT industry and bring AfterPC,AfterRouter, AfterERP, AfterBigData, AfterBrowser, AfterServer,AfterInternet, AfterWeb and more…
观点
2014年02月27日
观点
村长专栏:谷歌招聘:我们最关注的五项技能
关于Facebook是不是在招聘过程中犯了巨大的错误(参见底部说明),村长的一帮招聘兄弟们也聊的不亦乐乎。
WhatsApp是个难以复制的神话,是否能推演到招聘一般规律还很难说。但昨天纽约时报关于谷歌招聘的一篇文章《how to get a job in google》却更能引起专业招聘人士思考。
为了节省大家翻墙的功夫,我萃取了原文的主要观点:
Laszlo Bock(谷歌资深人力副总裁),谷歌已经判定“学分和考试在招聘过程中一点价值也没有,我们发现它们什么也预测不了”。没有大学学历的员工比例在谷歌不断上升,目前已经达到了14%。
整个谷歌在招聘过程中,都会关注5个要点:
学习能力。我们重视认知能力,但不是IQ分值,而是那种能在过程中快速学习的能力,能够把碎片的信息归整的能力。
领导力。现代领导力有别于传统的领导力,不再关注你是否学生会干部,不在乎你是否销售副总;而关注你做为团队中一员,是否在面对挑战时,选择合适的时机站出来,带领大家往前走。
谦逊。和领导力反向的谦逊是看你是否有足够的勇气来支持其它人更好的意见。终极目标是解决问题,为此你要能进能退。
协作精神。
适应性。
Laszlo认为专业知识(Expertise)是招聘中最应该忽略的因素。例如,你雇了一个具备极强学习能力、充满好奇和现代领导力的员工(比如在HR或财务岗位上),但他没有任何专业知识。把他和一个专业人士放在一起比较,你会发现绝大多数情况下他们的工作结果是没什么区别的,因为这些工作难度并不大。也许非专业人士会犯点错误,但有时也能贡献具有想象力的方案。
对于大多数年轻人而言,读完大学掌握知识依然是找到好工作的主要方式。但是,你的学位并不保证任何好工作。这世界只关心,只愿意,为用所学东西来创造价值的人买单。在创新日益成为群体活动时,许多软技能变得越发重要:leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn.无论你在哪里工作。
===关于村长微信===
村长是了猎头服务平台『基摩村』和移动社交招聘工具『玄德招聘』创始人,平时关注前沿的招聘理念和动向。订阅“村长”微信,可以不定时获得村长对招聘市场的精选唠叨和吐槽。 要是觉得无聊的有趣也欢迎转发给你周围的招聘朋友。
观点
2014年02月24日
观点
Oracle's Larry Ellison: How to Manage Your Most Precious AssetsJohn Foley, Oracle
Private sector employers hired 2.2 million workers in the US last year. Their ability to maximize the contributions of those talented individuals—to integrate, train, motivate, and keep them—now depends on how good those companies are at helping employees reach their full potential.
It’s called human capital management, and it’s rapidly evolving from a back office records-keeping function to a competitive differentiator that companies are using to attract the best and the brightest. The trend is being driven by global competition for hard-to-find skills, changing demographics in the workforce, and the experiences and expectations of a new generation of workers.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says HCM has emerged as one of the two most important functions in business—the other being customer service.
“It’s all about people,” Ellison told attendees at Oracle CloudWorld in San Francisco on January 29. “Taking care of your employees is extremely important, and very, very visible.”
Ellison is now taking that message directly to Chief Human Resources Officers and other executives responsible for HR operations, service delivery, recruitment, talent management, and the technology that supports those disciplines.
The venue for this meet up is Oracle HCM World, a first-time event that runs from February 4 to 6 at The Venetian Las Vegas.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison
The speakers and attendees at Oracle HCM World will be a cross section of business execs responsible for transforming a workforce into a tour de force, including Marie-Ann Morgan, Vice President of HR International withElizabeth Arden RDEN -0.18%, and Levent Arabaci, Executive VP of HR withHitachi Ltd. Topics on the agenda include data-driven HR leadership, recruiting, on-boarding employees, succession planning, rewards, and workforce management—all under the umbrella of HCM transformation.
The time is right for a serious brainstorming session on HCM best practices. According to a just-released survey by PwC, 63 percent of CEOs are concerned about the availability of key skills in their companies, and 50 percent say they will be increasing headcount over the next 12 months. The quality of those hires, and the speed with which their ideas and competencies are leveraged, will determine how successfully companies close the skills gap.
The data points above are from PwC’s 17th annual CEO Survey. Ed Boswell, a principal with PwC and the firm’s US advisory people & change practice leader, will be a keynote speaker at Oracle HCM World, as will John Doel, principal with KPMG, and Maureen Brosnan, managing director of HCM with Accenture.
This dramatically better approach to people management is best accomplished (in fact, it’s really only possible) with a new generation of socially-enabled tech tools—what Ellison describes as a 21st Century HCM system. One thing that’s very different about these new platforms is that they’re used by every employee in the company, not just by HR specialists.
These next-gen HR apps must be as easy and familiar to use as LinkedIn or Facebook and, like those social apps, run on virtually any mobile device. “The social network is the paradigm of the modern service application,” Ellison says.
A modern-day HCM system is cloud-based, faster and cheaper to deploy than on-premises systems, and applies business intelligence to deliver actionable insights. It must also have best-in-class capabilities in global HR, workforce optimization and management, rewards, and other core HR competencies. Check out Oracle HCM Cloud for the best example of this.
After carefully laying out this new and improved approach to HR, Ellison was asked why? Why was he putting such a major emphasis on HCM? “It’s the application everyone in the company uses,” he explained. “And it’s the application that manages your most precious assets—your people.”
llison points to Oracle—with 125,000 employees and still growing–as an example of why it’s so important for companies to create a collaborative work environment that places a premium on talent and innovation.
“What is Oracle? A bunch of people,” Ellison says. “And all of our products were just ideas in the heads of those people—ideas that people typed into a computer, tested, and that turned out to be the best idea for a database or for a programming language. I don’t think it’s very different whether you’re a technology company or a law firm or a retailer.”
Or a media company, which is where I worked for years before joining Oracle as a new employee eight months ago. That is to say, I’m walking the walk when it comes to modern HR. I’ve been on boarded, manage my own employee profile, and use Oracle social tools and messaging to collaborate with colleagues across the company every day.
As mentioned earlier, HCM is only half of the equation for companies in today’s service-centric economy. Customer service is the other half, and businesses must excel at both, Ellison says. His message boils down to this: Take care of your employees and take care of your customers.
There’s a virtuous cycle in doing so. It’s long been said that happy employees make happy customers. So businesses must be careful not to excel at HCM and disappoint at CX—or vice versa. They must strive to be great at both. “You can’t do one without the other,” says Ellison.
Winning Teams
And they must attract top talent, Ellison says, in much the same way that the Miami Heat recruited and built its NBA championship-winning basketball team. Is there a LeBron James of new product development in your company? A Dwyane Wade of sales?
Because attracting the very best people in your line of business, whether they’re dunking a basketball, renting cars, or selling financial services, provides a competitive edge. “I would say it’s simply the difference between winning and losing,” says Ellison.
That’s why HCM has moved to the top of the business priority list. And why HR execs have become trusted advisors to CEOs trying to build their own championship teams.
For more on how HCM has risen to become a CEO-level issue, see “How CEOs Can Transform HR Into A Revenue Driver,” by Oracle President Mark Hurd.
I would also recommend two columns by Bertrand Dussert, Oracle VP of HCM Transformation and Thought Leadership: “HR Should Hire ‘Scary’ Data People” and “HR Executives Need To Think Like The CMO.”
Hurd and Dussert will be among the more than two dozen expert speakers atOracle HCM World. I hope you to see you there.
For more on talent management, see these articles:
Kids, Code, And The Future Of Technology
The Customer Within: How ‘Employee Experience’ Is HR’s Competitive Differentiator