BPM big boys Oracle and IBM face a growing threat in the business process management market – Fujitsu. The Japanese giant today unveiled version 11 of its BPM product Interstage and commenced a free development program designed to take advantage of the growing trend around BPM cloud computing.

The new program is designed for channel, embedded and system integrator partners as well as enterprise development teams. Participants can test drive web-based Interstage BPM with limited risk and without up-front cost. Members have the option to develop and deploy the product for up to ten users free in Fujitsu’s own cloud. Fujitsu competitors like Oracle and IBM do not currently offer web-based, BPM cloud solutions through their own consolidated data centers. Most tap Amazon for the heavy-lifting and SLAs.

http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Fujitsu-BPM-Cloud-Challenges-IBM-Oracle-401162/

The new release and corresponding cloud services are focused on expanding its channel through OEM, VARs and systems integrators, company said.

According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. According to Larry Ellison, it’s nonsense and water vapor.

The chief executive of Oracle (ORCL) last week at the Churchill Club sat down with former Motorola CEO Ed Zander for a fireside chat about the future of the company he co-founded, the pending acquisition of Sun and the implications thereof, and the state of the economy in general.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/164309-oracle-s-larry-ellison-rips-into-cloud-computing-nonsense

Most amusing however, was his ranting on cloud computing, captured on video by TechPulse360. Of course, we’ve heard his refreshingly critical take of the buzzword du jour before, but he continues to make it a valid point:

“future of software” panel at our InformationWeek 500 conference offered several fresh insights into why the software-as-a-service landscape is changing. Here are four.

1. Board of Directors support: “Before the boards were asking ‘What’s this SaaS thing?’” said Ray Wang, consultant with Altimeter Group. ..Now, they’re saying ‘Why aren’t you doing something in the cloud?’- Woe to any CIO who pitches a big IT investment without addressing the cloud option.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/09/four_factors_ch.html;jsessionid=NMMJDH3BOMZVHQE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN

SaaS marks a new era and only “a fraction of the very large enterprise software companies will make the shift. Most will become maintenance houses.”

I believe that integration is so important that I wrote a book about it way back in the Stone Age. While the focus then was on the enterprises and intra-enterprise integration, we’re now seeing integration in a new cloudy light, with new players and new approaches, but with many of the same old problems.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/integration-challenges-cloud-computing-157

Although integration is the ugly side of cloud computing, integration issues can be easily addressed with some planning and good technology

Marketo, a provider of revenue-focused marketing automation and best practices, has inked a deal with on-demand integration provider, Boomi.

This deal will allow Marketo (News – Alert) clients to leverage complementary business systems to run more effective lead management programs. This agreement will be especially welcomed by large and midsized enterprises that now have the opportunity to quickly and easily connect Marketo solutions to enterprise resource planning (ERP), sales force automation and financial systems from popular vendors, as well as custom applications and customer databases.

http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/Analysis/articles/63795-marketo-boomi-team-boosting-app-integration-capabilities-enterprise.htm

Marketo is also now in a position to enable clients to maximize their investments in core business systems, regardless of whether these are SaaS (News – Alert) or on-premise applications.

The Indian offshore companies have become masters at moving code, call centers and research to high-skilled, low-wage regions. Their business model is synonymous with globalization. But cloud and SaaS delivery is best served by proximity and infrastructure reliability, and that may bring some changes to the Indian offshore model.

So far, U.S. companies have been the big players in developing software-as-a-service and cloud platforms for developers and enterprises. But Indian companies that used their low-wage advantages to build global firms are also moving into this area.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137462/Can_Indian_firms_deliver_cloud_services_from_offshore_

“Their business model is synonymous with globalization”