Software in the cloud

This chapter is about software in the cloud. In other words, it is all about those word processors, spreadsheets, databases, presentation packages, photo and video editors, project management applications and far more that can now be run in a web browser.

  As discussed in the last two chapters, software applications that are accessed over the Internet are known as ‘software as a service’ or ‘SaaS’. Today SaaS is the most visible manifestation of cloud computing. It is also one of the most exciting and the easiest to understand.

  SaaS applications have the advantage of being accessible from any device. This means that users can always access the most recent version of any document from their home PC, work PC, netbook, table or smartphone. Most SaaS applications are also collaborative. So, for example, two or more people can work on the same document at the same time, which makes remote working easier. In turn, it may even make our lifestyles greener by reducing our need to travel.

  If you wish, yu can read this chapter and immediately go to a computer and try out - for free - a wide range of very useful SaaS applications. In less than an hour online you can gain decent, practical experience of what cloud computing is all about and how it can benefit you or your organization. Remember the first time you used the World Wide Web? Well trying out SaaS for the first time is pretty much that magic-moment kind of computing experience.

  Even though online software is a fairly new development, there are already far too many applications in the cloud to include all of them in this book. This chapter is therefore not a definitive guide to every SaaS offering. Rather, the intention is to showcase via selective examples the kinds of applications available in the cloud and how useful SaaS has already become. If, however, you do want to know about even more applications, yu can turn to the Cloud Computing Directory starting on page 236 of this book. Alternatively you can search an online SaaS directory such as SaaSDir.com

The New Software Frontier

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, SaaS has well and truly come of age. Having said this, is should be noted from the outset that many SaaS applications are less sophisticated than their locally installed counterparts. However, this is usually a blessing, as it means most SaaS applications are not overburdened with functionality that is not required by most users.

  The vast majority of SaaS applications have been well written from scratch to simply get the job done. You may remember from chapter one that I described cloud computing as task-centric. Well, SaaS is centainly far more focused on what people actually want to achieve than many current mainstream software packages. Even Microsoft admits that most of us use less than 10 per cent of the functions in Microsoft Office.

  Because SaaS applications are delivered over the Internet, they are continually updated. SaaS applications therefore do not have version numbers. Instead new functionality is constantly added incrementally.

  When they first hear about constant updates, some people fear that they will make SaaS applications difficult to use. However, in practice the opposite is the case.  This is because SaaS users never have to go through the upgrade hell often associated with a major revision and re-installation of a traditional software package. Rather, SaaS users simply find a new item added to a menu very now and again. Because SaaS is Web 2.0, most new functions are also the result of feature requests championed online by many other users.

  All of the SaaS applications mentioned in this chapter will run on any kind of computer -PC, Mac, Linux netbook or whatever - providing that is has a broadband or other fast Internet connection. The only other requirement is a modern web browser. This specifically means Internet Explorer 8 or later, Firefox 3 or later, Apple’s Safari 4 or later, or any version of Google Chrome. If you try many of the SaaS applications detailed below in earlier web browsers, they may not work at all. Even worse, and far more likely, they may only partially work. This would give you a poor impression of SaaS and could even drive you insane.

SaaS E-mail

Lots of people now use a free online e-mail service, such as Google’s Gmail, Yohoo! Mail or Windows Live Hotmail. Before these service existed, all e-mail were written in an email application, such as Outlook Express, that was installed on the sender’s computer. The message was then sent over the Internet and download to the e-mail application installed on the recipient’s computer. However, when e-mailing takes place between two people who use services like Gmail, Yohoo! Mail or Hotmail, their message never leave the cloud. The e-mail software used to write and read the message is also never installed on either user’s PC.

  As the above illustrates, those hundreds of millions of people who use web-based e-mail services are already quite happily using software in the cloud. E-mail is therefore the first major category of SaaS application. Cloud-based e-mail also looks likely to become as common in business as it already is in our personal lives.

  For many organizations, e-mail is a relative no-brainer to outsource to an external supplier. This is because running e-mail servers is a generic computing activity that can involve significant administration costs. The security concerns that currently curtail the broader uptake of cloud computing in many companies are also less of a worry when it comes to e-mail. This is because all external e-mail messages are destined to end up in the cloud anyway. It is therefore difficult for even the most server-hugging IT department to argue against using SaaS e-mail.

  As explored in the next section, major SaaS office suites, such as Google Apps and Zoho Business, already include web-based e-mail as standard. Their offerings are also proving increasingly popular, with other big players now entering the market.

  To provide just one highly significant example, in October 2009 IBM waded into the cloud computing e-mail market-place with an SaaS offering called LotusLive iNotes. For $36 per user a year, this provides web-based e-mail and calendar functions. It also integrates with IBM’s broader LotusLive suite of business social networking and collaboration tools mentioned in the last chapter. You can find out more at LotusLive.com.

  As e-mail becomes cloud-based, it may evolve and intergrate with other types of SaaS applications. Google, for example, is currently trying to reinvent e-mail with a cunning SaaS offering called Google Wave. This is described by Google as an ‘online tool for real-time communication and collaboration’. In effect, Google Wave is intended to be what e-mail would have been had it had been invented in the Web 2.0 Age.

  Each Google Wave communication is ‘in equal parts conversation and document’, with the application allowing people to communicate and work together with richly formatted text, images, videos and more. Basically, think of each Google Wave communication as a widely sharable e-mail message in which any attachments are always editable and open.

  In addition to its Wave offering, Google is also trying to reinvent e-mail by integrating social networking functionality. This has been achieved by adding an application called Google Buzz into Gmail. However, to date reviews of Buzz have been somewhat mixed. Not least much poor press followed Google’s initial decision to configure Buzz to automatically follow everybody that a user most frequently e-mails. By default, this list of contacts was also made public and shared to all other followers. As we will discuss further in chapter nine, while Google’s intention was to ensure that everybody had some online friends, the move inevitably raised serious privacy concerns.

Office SaaS

Apart from web-based e-mail, today most people have probably not used any other form of SaaS. However, almost every computer user will have some experience of a traditional office application such as s word processor or a spreadsheet. For most individuals or organizations, the best kind of SaaS application to start experimenting with is therefore a cloud-based office package.

  The collaborative features of Google Docs really are incredibly useful. For example, they make it far easier for serveral people to work on the same report or presentation, or to update information, such as sales figures in single spreadsheet. Rather than e-mailing around attachments for some poor sod to collate, everybody can work on the same document and everybody always sees the latest information.

  The collaboration tools is Google Docs have been implemented with particular care. For example, in shared spreadsheets the cell or cells being worked on by another user are locked and highlighted in another colour. A chat window can also be opened up beside a shared spreadsheet to allow different users to discuss their changes in real-time. Some companies used to pay a small fortune for this type of specialist functionality.

  Every time a user logs in to Google Docs they are presented with a file manager screen like that shown in screenshot 3.1. From here they can upload files, create and navigate folders, arrange files within them, and open existing documents. For example, clicking on a word processor documents will open it up as previously shown in screenshot 1.1 on page 5. All of the expected text-formatting tools and menus are there just like they are in any other word processor.

  From the main Google Docs screen, users can create a new word processor document, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, form or folder. All are self-explanatory, apart from Google Docs forms. These are basically spreadsheet data entry screens that can be shared privately or publicly, or even embedded into other web pages. This makes, for example, conducting online surveys really easy. Users just create a new form, select a template from the scores available, and add their questions.

  Screenshot 3.2 show a simple Google Docs form created in under a minute. Every time anybody completes the form,  a spreadsheet that Google Docs automatically creates in updated with the results in real-time. The spreadsheet for the form illustrated in screenshot 3.2 is shown in screenshot 3.3.

  As I hope the above has started to signal, while Google Docs can simply be used as a free, collaborate online office suite,  the potential is far greater. The Google Docs spreadsheet in particular can control a great many online things, and is therefore well worth becoming acquainted with.

  As another example, anybody who wants to add an online store to their website can do so by embedding the Google Checkout gadget mentioned in the last chapter. They can then administer their store - adding and deleting products, changing prices and so on - simply by editing the Google Docs spreadsheet that Google Checkout automatically create for this purpose. No programming knowledge whatsoever is required.(If you skipped chapter two on Web 2.0, you may want to go back and read the section on web service starting on page 34 to fully understand what I am going on about here.)

  Google has done its homework with Google Docs. The functionality is not as sophisticated as Microsoft Office, but what most people need is there and works well. To make life really easy there are also thousands of templates available. These cover everything from household budgeting and invoices, to resumes(CVs) and business cards. Because Google Docs is a Web 2.0 tool, anybody can create a template not just for personal use, but to instantly share with the world.