Saturday, March 27, 2010

Benefit of SaaS

Historically, companies were required to buy, build, and maintain their IT infrastructures despite exponential costs. SaaS gives companies an alternative. Now, they can plug in and subscribe to services built on shared infrastructure via the Internet. The SaaS model has flourished in recent years because of the many benefits it offers to businesses of all sizes and types.

Here’s what’s driving customers to take advantage of SaaS solutions:

1. High Adoption
   
   SaaS applications are available from any computer or any device—any time, anywhere. Because most people are familiar with using the Internet to find what they need, SaaS apps tend to have high adoption rates, with a lower learning curve.
   
   
2. Lower Initial Costs
   
   SaaS applications are subscription based. No license fees mean lower initial costs. Having the SaaS provider manage the IT infrastructure means lower IT costs for hardware, software, and the people needed to manage it all.
   
   
3. Painless Upgrades
   
   Because the SaaS provider manages all updates and upgrades, there are no patches for customers to download or install. The SaaS provider also manages availability, so there’s no need for customers to add hardware, software, or bandwidth as the user base grows.
   
   
4. Seamless Integration
   
   SaaS vendors with true multitenant architectures can scale indefinitely to meet customer demand. Many SaaS providers also offer customization capabilities to meet specific needs. Plus, many provide APIs that let you integrate with existing ERP systems or other business productivity systems.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

PrimeObjects SaaS (Software as a Service) Platform integrates with Amazon S3 services

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a web service provided by Amazon to help 3rd party applications or end users store their files online by leveraging the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. For more information please visit http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
 
PrimeObjects SaaS (Software as a Service) Platform supports and integrates Amazon S3 services. By leveraging the Amazon S3 service, the users of PrimeObjects don’t need to worry about even millions of concurrent accesses to their published files. At the same time, it allows PrimeObjects support terabytes or petabytes of files without expensive hardware upgrade.
 
By default, users of PrimeObject Online Business Management Softwares and Services (http://www.primeobjects.com) will have their files saved in Amazon S3 storage service to gain the highest performance. The on-premise or partner-hosted edition of PrimeObjects Softwares and Serviceshas the Amazon S3 integration turned off, but the system administrator can easily turn on the Amazon S3 integration by following a few simple steps.

The on-premise and partner-hosted business management softwares and services buildt on PrimeObjects SaaS (Software as a Service) Platform have 3 document and file storage options. They are Local File Storage, Database Storage and Amazon S3 Storage.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

PrimeObjects Command Engine Web Service supports three major protocals JSON, XML and SOAP

PrimeObjects SaaS (Software as a Service) Platform comes with a Command Engine Web Service API (the API). The API consumes any function call through a common generic web service interface. Developers in any level can successfully make a web service call to the API after the training for 10 minutes. The API can be consumed by any programming language, system and platform by supporting three major protocals JSON, XML and SOAP.

JSON Protocol
The JSON protocol is ideal for an AJAX application, which submits requests from the end user’s browser and processes JSON responses. The JSON interface can return JSON responses in three different formats:
    * Raw
    * Callback
    * Function

XML Protocol
If you are working on Silverlight/Flash, or any applications that support XML but do not support SOAP, the XML protocol may be an appropriate choice. The only limitation on the XML interface that it is an HTTP GET interface, in which the length of the requested URL is limited by the maximum URL length.

SOAP Protocol
The SOAP protocol provides strong types, a request/response object model and is able to submit a complex request without the limitation of maximum URL length. It is most appropriate for those who wok on desktop or server applications with high level languages that have native SOAP library support (such as C#, VB or Java).

Sunday, April 26, 2009

How can PrimeObjects Content Management help on SEO-ing images

1. Use the alt attribute and be descriptive
2. Put your images somewhere authoritative - like on Picassa, Wikipedia, or Flickr, and link them back to your site, where possible.
3. Put words and descriptions around your graphics to provide context and be sure to tag photos with keyword loaded data.
4. Link your images and graphics to other posts on your site.
5. Use the keyword as the name of the image.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Can Web 2.0 Really Help the Knowledge Management Cause?

PrimeObjects Web 2.0 team is working hard to achieve exactly same goal.

The article from Phil White on KMEdge.org.

What do we want out of knowledge management implementations?

    * We want organic growth of information, but we also want an "official version."
    * We want to promote innovation and open usage, but we cannot risk exposing proprietary intellectual property.
    * We want fast, intranet-based tools, but we don't want to spend money.
    * We want everything in beta, but the tools still need to be stable.
    * We want free-flowing information, but without negatively impacting legal, e-discovery, or litigation.
    * We want integration with large legacy systems, but we also want low implementation costs.
    * We want grassroots adoption, but with executive sponsorship.
    * We want to increase KM effectiveness, but with little or no additional funding.

Ok, I'm sure you get the point.  I think we've all faced these tradeoffs--and many more--when undertaking KM implementations. We've preached for many years, "Integrate everything and get it out at the right time to the right users." But solving this dilemma has been elusive at best.

At Rockwell Collins Inc. (where I am manager of knowledge and critical skills management), we've begun to experiment with Web 2.0 technologies to address some of these challenges. In an effort to make KM real to our engineering user base, we piloted two Web 2.0 applications: a wiki and a forum.

Using the wiki, we can create content that is both vetted and user-contributed at the speed of the intranet.  We put the information that people need in line with their daily activities and, by showing the productivity enhancement capabilities, we were able to secure executive sponsorship.  

However, a nagging question remains: Will people use the new tools?  Will they really achieve the value we are promoting?  These may appear to be strange questions since wikis are so viral outside the corporate setting.  But we must remember that these two environments are different and operate under different rules. What is acceptable in my social or leisure time is not necessarily acceptable during my professional time.  But my team has a gut feeling that Web 2.0 technologies can play a vital role in advancing KM at our organization.

Why has the corporate world been so slow to adopt these technologies? I believe the answer lies in the necessary paradigm shift related to how we process information. It's a shift from a lot of hierarchical order and paper to higher levels of comfort with user contribution, less inherent order, and a "please, no paper" attitude. All these trends can be seen in the changing mindsets of younger generations in the workplace. In order to gain acceptance for this more loosely connected information paradigm, we must provide the proper context and incentives to encourage people to participate.

In the engineering world--which is our primary focus at Rockwell Collins--I believe the key is to make Web 2.0 technologies easy and intuitive to use. For us, connecting a forum to a wiki appears to have provided an effective solution. People who prefer to ask questions instead of searching can enter the forum and post their queries. The forum searches the wiki for possible answers. If none are found, the question goes to a support person. As we build up the content in the wiki, we are seeing an increase in the percentage and volume of questions that can be resolved through wiki articles. People who prefer to perform their own searches can go directly to the wiki and find the answers they need.  If collaboration is required to formulate a solution, users can create a new wiki entry and engage others to help develop the answer. What started as a simple support system has grown into our engineering encyclopedia of knowledge, including information on people, processes, and tools. The wiki not only contains information on launching and running our engineering tools, but it also helps engineers understand and utilize our engineering standard processes.