Cloud adoption has been steadily growing over the years, but both in spite of and because of the economy, 2010 promises to be the inflection point of wide-scale cloud adoption. Those companies that were unaware, or semi-aware of the cloud can no longer ignore the strong value proposition of access to previously inaccessible productivity tools; the ability to collaborate with teams, partners and customers; shifting focus from IT to business, and improving speed-to-market through instantly set up solutions.

The cloud approach brings very compelling benefits to companies, which is why it resonates so well. Under this approach, the software solution resides at the vendor's remote servers, rather than the customer's own servers, and is accessed via an Internet connection as a "service." Software configuration, upgrades, maintenance, and support are all responsibilities of the vendor; customers adopt a "pay-as-you-go" pricing structure, with monthly fees based upon actual use. Since they're now "renting" the software rather than "buying" it, companies have access to otherwise prohibitively expensive enterprise class technologies.

Unlike Microsoft and Salesforce.com, there are now smart, agile, evolved enterprise applications that support an integrated hybrid SaaS, cloud infrastructure, and on-premise software environment. In the past, you might buy 100 licenses for an app and find out a year later that only 30 people used them. Today, you start out by buying 20 seats from Salesforce.com and add more as you need them. The difference with software as a service is you don't pay upfront for licenses you might eventually need, you just pay for what you use.

A Green Lining
Users no longer have to decide between the cloud or on-premise - not with hybrid applications. The new hybrid platform gives users the option of running their applications hosted online - on dedicated servers, virtual servers, or any form of cloud computing - or on-premises for anywhere access. These hybrid applications can be deployed as SaaS or on-premises through a browser and a native client.

ISVs particularly have a hunger to deliver a superior solution to their customers seeking hybrid deployment options. At the same time, they shouldn't want to lock their customers into a SaaS-only mode, but should also offer the option to run on-premises at any moment.

Hybrid software development platforms combine the best of two approaches - on-premises and in the cloud - to meet a wide range of customer needs. Combined with mobile enterprise deployment, ISVs can use a hybrid approach to offer customers choices that meet their budgeting, green resource, and timing needs and maximize revenue.

SaaS Success
Organizations can replace their traditional terminal server technology with web- and smart-client technology. By redesigning applications to fit these modern architectures, total carbon footprints can be reduced by 90 percent. So now with hybrid SaaS, you can redesign your software and development platform to minimize power consumption both from an economic as well as an environmental point of view.

For example, about seven years ago, a leading ISV made their first "green" move by offering a hosted solution. By doing so, they consolidated hundreds of servers from their clients into their data center and used virtualization and other techniques to minimize the hardware needed. However, they did have a scalability problem with their current SaaS solution because it was still very "power hungry."

With the hybrid cloud it is easy to build and deliver SaaS-enabled applications. All the technical aspects to be able to deliver and develop SaaS applications are already built into the platform. The hybrid cloud supports all SaaS models out of the box: multi-tenant, multi-database and multi-instance. In addition, the hybrid cloud allows you to use that same application and install it on-premises with customers and even the capability to switch between the two models. This gives ISVs the ability to seamlessly add a SaaS offering to their current offerings without the need to maintain two different code bases.

For instance, a customer replaced their traditional terminal server technology with hybrid web- and smart-client technology. By redesigning their applications to fit these modern architectures, they reduced their total carbon footprint by 90 percent. As a result, they can redesign their software and development platform to minimize power consumption both from an economic as well as an environmental point of view.

By allowing customers to do all configuration tasks remotely in the cloud, this greatly increases efficiency and saves on traveling time and expenses. Going hybrid allows them to concentrate on business outcomes without having to invest in extended parties. For example, by hiring the two additional programmers in-house for their project, they got to keep that experience on site where it's needed - without having to outsource.

It's very demanding on an organization to have to use 120 servers in terms of upkeep, money and time expended. Linear scaling is in the DNA of the hybrid solution and it's very easy - like a magic box - twenty-fold less complicated than having to do it alone, and they can use what's already in there.

SaaS and Back Again
Most modern SaaS platforms dictate that you use their proprietary platform, their proprietary infrastructure, their proprietary language, and their limited browser-based proprietary development tool. Then, once you've developed and deployed your application, you're at their mercy. If you want to integrate with local hardware, local databases, or other local resources, you need to write even more code. What happens when your customer wants to take that same application and put it behind their own firewall? Well, with most services, you're out of luck. Not with the hybrid cloud.

With the hybrid cloud, you can take the same code that you are hosting in a SaaS model and deliver it to your customer - along with their data. The customer can then install it in their own environment and be up and running the same day.

Your Choice of Hosting Options
Once you're ready to deploy your SaaS application - you can choose the way you want to host it. You can host it on your own servers, host it "in the cloud" using a service like Amazon EC2 where you pay for only the resources you use; you can host it with a dedicated hosting provider (on their hardware or yours); and we can even help you get hosted with multi-national hosting providers like OpSource for worldwide reach. The best part is - you're not limited. You can start on your own hardware, and then when things take off - you can easily move to another model of hosting. Again, one code base, on any platform, with any back-end database.

Create Your Own Platform
With the hybrid cloud, you have the capability to allow others to create modules that integrate with your own solution. These modules can be entirely new sets of functionality, or, depending on how you set up your solution, they can be forms/objects that are created dynamically on-the-fly for each group or even each user. ISVs want to know how to get their margins up and be #1 in tech innovation.

The hybrid cloud supports integration with SaaS account solutions, allowing customers to do all configuration tasks remotely. This greatly increases efficiency and saves on traveling time and expenses. The hybrid cloud allows ISVs to concentrate on what they need to do without having to invest in extended parties. For example, developing in the hybrid cloud allows you to keep your programming knowledge in house and where it's needed - without having to outsource.

Developing solutions with the hybrid cloud means being database agnostic, so ISVs can pick the best of breed for each situation, allowing you to deploy on as many platforms as possible - Windows and Mac, or whatever. The hybrid cloud helps ISVs tremendously when faced with all of these issues.