The Real Cloud Opportunity for VARs: PaaS

The predominant benefit in 2009 from cloud computing was access to less expensive computing power and availability of more SaaS based solutions. But how will solutions providers make money from cloud and SaaS offerings in 2010? Here are some clues.

During 2009, VARs that promoted on-premise solutions were challenged to redefine their value-add since much of what they had built their business and expertise around was becoming commoditized. The question for many was how to participate in cloud computing in a way that allowed them to make money.

Platform as a Service

The answer: Platform as a Service (PaaS) will likely become an increasingly good opportunity for Solution Partners to leverage the cloud, continue to add value to their customers, and make money in 2010. Here is why.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) such as force.com and Google app engine provide an on-demand development environment that reduces development environment complexity, time and cost so that developers can focus on building applications. Some are taking it a step further and focusing on the needs of Solution Partners, providing very innovative ways to help them expand their business.

The current trend is improving time to market and time to revenue which is greatly dependent on how quickly you can build and deploy an application. The opportunity to add value now is not so much in technical competency but in a Partner’s understanding of the business problem that needs to be solved and then building that application in a way that adds the most immediate value to the business.  As Heather Margolis pointed out in July 2009, SaaS will drive the emergence of a new type of partner, who has strong business domain expertise  and who traditionally may not have focused on providing technology solutions.

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