THINK AHEAD - notes, comments and observations by Gavin Harvett

Adding Identity Federation to a SaaS application

2009-03-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

I’ve learned a lot about new technology matter as VP of product management for eXpresso. Of particular value to me has been gaining a deep understanding of the peripheral services a SaaS vendor needs to incorporate in order to arrive at the whole product, for example managed hosting, payment processing, analytics, etc. Recently I have been delving into the area of Internet Single-Sign-On (SSO). This is something every SaaS provider should have an action plan for as early on as possible,

especially if the service being offered is business-focused.

Having a standards-based implementation for enabling SSO for partners and customers can accelerate the adoption and increase the revenue potential of your service. There are a number of “standards” making their rounds currently, but the ones that seem to becoming established are SAML and OpenID for SSO and OAuth for API authorization. There are a variety of commercial off-the-shelf products available to help SaaS vendors become compliant with these standards – on the service end as well as on the consumer/identity end (for enabling SaaS customers to become compliant). Some products and services in this domain that I have become familiar with are:

From TriCipher:

myOneLogin Federation for identity federation, and myOneLogin Secure SSO for End-user Internet SSO. I recently blogged about my discovery of myOneLogin.

From Ping Identity:

Ping Federate for identity federation, and SignOn.com for end-user Internet SSO.

There’s another category of web technologies that aggregate access to web apps onto a webtop that use these authentication/authorization standards and technologies. I have become familiar with (and really like) Symantec’s GoEveryWhere offering. Symantec licensed technology from TriCipher to achieve the SSO component of their offering. We had a partnership with them at eXpresso and I wrote about it in this blog posting.

The Importance and Challenge of Microsoft’s Office Collaboration

2008-11-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

Last month Microsoft made a string of announcements about new “software plus services” that they are bringing to market, most notably Azure, Windows 7 and Office Web applications. What struck me was the sheer volume of blogs, discussions and analyses that attempt to decipher Microsoft’s announcements and explain how the pieces could possibly fit together to benefit Joe the end-user. This ripple effect demonstrates the importance of collaborating with Microsoft Office files and the significant challenges users will encounter.

Let’s face it, Microsoft Office produces the single most important set of document types for which business users need the ability to collaborate, but its massive install base suffers from predictable version disparity. Today, it is common for an Office 2007 document to be given to someone who edits it in Office 2003 and passes it on to someone who needs to open it in Office XP. And when Office 14 is released in 2010, it’s safe to assume there will still be users of Office 2000. Collaboration would work seamlessly if all these Office versions had the same file format, but they don’t!

With Office 2007, Microsoft introduced new file formats that are not backward compatible (.xlsx, .docx, .pptx). This means Office 2007 formatted documents must be converted to be viewed or edited in earlier Office versions. Frustratingly, the new file formats have little to no benefit to end users, causing most Office 2007 users to save all their files as earlier Office document formats (.xls, .doc, .ppt). This way their friends and colleagues can view and edit their documents with less hassle.

Not surprisingly, Office 97-2003 document formats will continue to be the lingua franca of business and remain the common denominator most every PC or Mac user can view and edit. Therefore, when eXpresso releases its full support for Office files in early 2009, it will automatically convert all Office documents to these formats and give them all the real-time collaborative properties that eXpresso users have enjoyed with Excel since the beginning. Thankfully, eXpresso users won’t even have to think about formats.

Cloud Computing Defined

2008-09-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

My favorite and very concisce definition of Cloud Computing is that it is "fundamentally about the commoditization of IT infrastructure". These are some interesting and useful resources for helping define Cloud Computing:

1. Inside the emerging world of cloud computing [InfoWorld]

Who provides what in the cloud

Cloud versus cloud

The dangers of cloud computing

What cloud computing really means

A step closer to the integrated cloud

2. Cloud Computing begins to emerge from the haze [InfoWorld]
3. An A to Z of Cloud Computing [SEO/SEM Journal]

4. Goodnight Cloud Misconceptions [ebizQ/Phil Wainewright, The Connected Web]

Our world is getting more and more interesting

2007-11-05T20:29:00.001-08:00

If, like me, you are a semi-technical software professional with formal software training and real-world experience, there is a phenomenon going on as we speak that we should really be getting excited about: - platforms for creating composite collaborative applications (mash-ups). For example:

These platforms are popping up as if from nowhere and they offer:

To the end-user:- the promise of a single-point of access to every single application that he may use to perform his day-to-day functions.

To the SaaS vendor:- A way to tap into the vast user community accessible by the larger vendors (Salesforce, WebEx, Facebook) and accelerate the adoption of your application service.

The catch is... the companies behind these platforms need to recruit partners that have the capacity and staying power to deliver the components to these mash-ups and then they need to contribute in a real way to the success of those companies.

Working for an up-and-coming software company in the collaboration space, these plaforms offer a significant amount of promise along with several challenges, some that I'm sure I'm not even aware of yet. Establishing a paper-based partnership with above-mentioned companies is a little more than a mere formality, but articulating a sound joint value proposition, delivering a solution, and converting curious eyeballs into revenue-generating users is a different ball of wax.

But challenges are good and I'm thrilled to be part of this revolution.

Insights gained from Office 2.0 blog postings

2007-09-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

It certainly seems that businesses now expect the interaction and accessibility of the web in any new business app they procure—they aren’t enticed by just the "wow" factor any longer.

In the end, battle is over accumulation of developers and users.

eXpresso Debuts Groundbreaking Real-Time Collaborative Environment for Excel Spreadsheet Users

2007-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

eXpresso(TM) Debuts Groundbreaking Real-Time Collaborative Environment for Excel Spreadsheet Users

KillerStartup.com: "Considering that spreadsheets have become one of the most important office applications in the world today, eXpresso should probably see a similar surge in popularity. This is exactly what the corporate world has been waiting for."

CrunchBase: "Expresso Corp is bringing new capabilities to Microsoft Excel. Using their software users can manage, compare and collaborate on Excel documents – features that Microsoft surprisingly hasn’t added on their own."

eXpresso Launches

2007-08-10T20:45:00.001-07:00

After several months, even more sleepless nights, and the amazing efforts of a lot of people here in the US and in Vietnam, we officially launched eXpresso this week! The product looks great and without exception we've had very positive feedback from users, analysts and the press. I suspect that everyone will hear a whole lot more about eXpresso in the coming months.

For me personally it has been and continues to be an amazing experience. Bringing a hosted software application to the market that has appeal to potentially millions of users is really exhilirating. In my role as VP of product marketing, I have had the privilege of working very closely with an amazing engineering team in Vietnam, an up-and-coming managed hosting provider (Rackspace), Venture Capitalists, and a marketing team that has a whole lot to learn about marketing online applications (this includes me). It feels great showing the product to senior folks at companies like Microsoft and Salesforce.com and hearing them praise our efforts to date and encouraging us to keep them in the loop of what we're doing.

The rest of 2007 will consist of a lot of hard work, but I sense that this will be rewarding one way or another.

Squash... the sport, not the vegetable...

2007-08-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've been playing squash since high school when I started playing with my friend, Ron Stuart, at the Johannesburg Country club in the late '80s. 1990 was a weird year that I served in the South African National Defence Force and I used squash as an excuse to get off-base and go into the town of Phalaborwa. But I really got into squash during my university years at RAU (now the University of Johannesburg) from '91 to '94. Then, I played mostly with my friends Willie van Niekerk, James Daniels and Willem de Ru. I got some coaching from Walt Snyman, and began playing in organized leagues. Time constraints from '95 to '98 prevented me from playing as much as I would have like to and then when we moved to the US in '99 I played no (as in zero) squash for almost 4 years.

In late 2002 I joined Supreme Court in Sunnyvale and had to learn how to play again... now weiging about 15kg more than before. I remember twisting my ankle during my very first match back, forcing me to take a 4-6 week break again. Then we returned to South Africa living in Cape Town for 2 years. I played some squash but not much... mostly against my brother-in-law, Willem and Hamish Houston. On returning to California in Dec 2004 I vowed to take up squash again... seriously... and I did! I rejoined Supreme Court and got to know a bunch of great guys like Vani Moodley and Tom Alexander. For some time my wife worked nights until 8pm and I would spend 5-8pm at the squash club. This allowed me to really get back into squash shape for the first time since 1994. Then I became a dad in Sep 2006 and things changed again. I chose to spend every hour that my boy and I were awake at the same time together and squash took a bit of a back seat. That was a good decision at the time, but as my weight pushed north of 200 lbs, I realized I need squash to stay in shape. Nowadays I am a courtesy member at Stanford (thanks to my wife working there) and I'm beginning to make my comeback. I find that I am less competitive but enjoy playing the game because I love it and because it helps me control my weight.

Incidentally, in 2003 Forbes conducted research into the healthiest sports. The key lesson taht I got out of this is that while many people today may be able to reach their life expectancy, they're going to be a helluva lot less comfortable getting there than those who strive to maintain some sort of a decent physical condition along the way. And THAT'S WHY I PLAY SQUASH!
Aug 2010 Update: After moving to Folsom in Apr 2008 I joined Broadstone Racquet Club, which has proven to be a great place to play squash with a range of guys at levels above and below me. Since I work from home, I go down there often during lunch and get a great workout. I represent BRC in the Sacramento Valley Squash League.

What's in a comet?

2007-01-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

My sister sent me this picture of McNaught's comet taken over Cape Town earlier this month. I'm not easilly impressed by astological things, but this photo just blew me away. Perhaps I'm a little home-sick and the image of Table Mountain and Lion's Head was really what got to me.
Anyway, 2007 is off to a decent start. We seem to be getting close to some VC funding for the latest product. That buys me some more time in this place to figure out what I really want to do. One thing I am doing for the first time ever this week is buying Lotto tickets. It's not that I feel particularly lucky, but given the life we would really like to live here in California, winning a million-or-so would really help.
Things are going very well with my son (now 4-and-a-half months old) and he is an absolute joy! He started day care last week, which is a big step for our little family. Fortunately he seems to be doing really well there.
Enough of the rambling... the comet is really what inspired me to make this quick posting. More later!

Genesis of Think-Ahead

2006-12-12T02:14:00.000-08:00

Today my son is 3 months old. Since he's been born, I've been thinking about the future a whole lot more. Where will we raise him and send him to school? What will the world look like when he has to begin competing for jobs? How involved will I be in his life? The years of "just living" seems to have come to an end, and much more "planning" is necessary going forward. Hence this blog: my journal of ideas for the future and a way to keep track of how plans do/don't work out the way we envision.

My wife and I have had 9 wonderful years of marriage and have travelled to many places... lived in four countries... made many friends... gained a global perspective. For this we are truly thankful. Now it is time to settle down and establish our little family. God willing we will have a second child in the next 2-3 years. Ultimately we'd like to move back to South Africa, although we are very happy here in California for the moment. We're taking our boy to meet his grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts in South Africa later this week. Hopefully being back in SA will bestow some wisdom upon us vis-a-vis timing and feasibility of moving back there. Current time frame for such a move is 2009 at the earliest, definitely after child #2. We view giving our children dual US/SA citizenship as a wonderful gift and something that may not be as easy in the future. In 2009 we'll also be able to apply for US citizenship unless the INS and US govt decides to change the laws. Quite possible given the times we live in.

And then there is work... I am just embarking on a new start-up venture with a US/Vietnam team and the new year should tell us if there will be funding and how successful it is likely to be. We have aninteresting team dynamic (perhaps I'll write a blog post about this some time).

Well, that's a start! My focus now is on wrapping a few things up at work before our much anticipated trip back to the motherland. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika!