Published on May 28th, 2010
By Elizabeth Millar
Last week I gave an invited presentation at the MIT Enterprise Forum. The topic was “Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) a $160 Billion Market Opportunity.”
The audience was delighted to learn about cloud computing and the vision behind AppFolio and about our web-based solution for property managers.
What is Cloud Computing? It is Internet-based computing where shared resources, software, information, and massively scalable IT capabilities are delivered on demand “as a Service.” But the real advantage of Software-as-a-Service is that it can be accessed from anywhere, any device, using just a simple browser. Users can be working from PCs, Macs, iPhones, and even new iPads. This is exciting!!
Cloud computing represents the next major computing cycle after Mainframe Computing, and PC & Client/Server Computing [Wikipedia] because it dramatically reduces the IT complexity. As Nicholas Carr, the author of “The Big Switch,” likes to point out, 100 years ago large companies stopped generating their own electricity and instead plugged into the newly built electric grid. This freed them up to focus on their core business instead of electricity generation. The same exciting transformation is happening today with Internet cloud computing. It allows companies to focus on their business and customers, instead of managing servers, databases, backups, and the complexities of information technologies.
Annual worldwide IT spending today is close to $400 Billion [IDC], 95% of which is delivered by on-premise IT solutions. Only 5% is delivered by IT Cloud Services. But this is changing quickly. No wonder IDC predicts that cloud computing is a $44B opportunity, Gartner predicts $56B of cloud services revenue, and Merrill Lynch estimates cloud-computing revenues will soon reach $160 billion.
There is a tidal wave going through the IT industry, the future of computing is web-based and property managers are definitely embracing web-based technology. When you’re no longer required to be at your desk to access and share information, you can get so much more work done!
Property Managers – In addition to web-based property management software, what other kinds of Software as a Service applications are you using to improve your productivity?
Jason Randall
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Hi Eric – Yes, mobile computing will be a powerful game changer for Property Management and we are working hard in this direction. We are part way there simply by having mobile devices like the iPad that can run our existing web based application. However, we believe strongly in understanding primary uses of mobile computing in the PM environment and then building elegant and simple solutions to meet those needs.
So to answer you questions, yes there is already demand for mobile Property Management apps and we are moving strongly in that direction.
David
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What happens when the internet is down? How do I go about my business if there is a local outage, the President decides to shut it down for ‘security reasons’, or a terrorist takes out key hardware grids such as telecommunications or even server locations? The latter two would be devastating, however unlikely, and the former would be highly annoying and happens periodically in my location. Is there any provision for dealing with data temporarily if you have no internet?
Nat Kunes
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Hi David,
Those are excellent questions. One great aspect of cloud computing is it has a built in resistance to events such as the ones you describe. Most providers (including AppFolio) have multiple data centers in many locations, meaning if a terrorist attack or other disaster happens, all data will be securely routed through a backup data center elsewhere in the world. This provides the utmost security for your data. If a flood swept through your office destroying all your computers you would not have your data anymore. With cloud computing, you would be able to log onto a computer the next town over and still have all your data. If the power went out to your building, you would be out of commission until it came back on. With cloud computing, you could go to the Starbucks across the street and continue working. As you can see the examples are endless, but the true power of cloud computing is in its robustness.