Welcome to the CIO's Guide to On-Demand

"The smart enterprise software companies know their model is broken. They understand that comparing the ability to innovate or the business model with On-Demand companies will lead to their ruin. Their only hope is in spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. What about security, control, integration, etc..? The problem with that strategy is that in software and life hopes, dreams and a better future always trumps the near term uncertainty associated with a new paradigm"

-Senior Executive at one of the largest (on premise) software companies in the world

In this inaugural blog entry for Appirio, we'd like to lay out our philosophy as a company and the focus of this blog. As a company, we are focused on accelerating the adoption of On-Demand solutions in medium and large enterprises. This means that we will deliver services customized to the needs of an individual customer and products that serve broader market segments. In addition, through this blog and other channels we hope to shed light on the direction of the industry in a way that identifies and mitigates risk with the vast potential of On-Demand.

The topics we cover, and the perspective we bring, will focus on the medium and large enterprise. We have sold, created, and delivered enterprise software and services to thousands of these companies. After many years of experiencing the constant uphill battle of on-premise software in their environment, we believe that the maturation of On-Demand represents one of the most significant events in the history of software based business solutions.

In this blog, we will take the perspective of a mid and large enterprise on analyzing how to accelerate On-Demand adoption and incorporate the rapid change that is occurring in the market. On-Demand solutions have increased the rate of innovation in the market, we’re hear to help you navigate this sea change in software.

Key topics we will be covering include:

• "If an Opportunity is Lost and No One Sees It..." - User Experience and Adoption of On-Demand
• "Too Much Hype, Not Enough Reality" - Integration and On-Demand
• "Let's All Get Along" - IT and Business Governance
• "The Goals and Dreams of Your Vendor" - Differences in how on premise and on demand companies view customers
• "The Platypus and the Platform" - Fundamental shifts in the architecture of technology in the enterprise
• "The Change Constant" - Innovation, Software and Business Impact

For every topic, we'll prove a real world, on premise counter example that provides a baseline through which to understand how much brighter the On-Demand future can be. Of course, we'll change the names to protect the innocent. After all, if you go back far enough, in our industry, we were all once on premise software people...