Sauce Labs CTO Addresses Developer Needs around SaaS Revolution
The SaaS revolution has decidedly shifted the way we think about software, its use cases and its distribution. With software able to be developed quite readily, and specific in function and platform application, the cloud becomes a powerful force for the industry to flourish in the coming year. Salesforce’s recent launch of Dreamforce and Google’s goals around its Chrome OS are the latest examples of where this revolution is headed, with an eye for individuals and businesses needing highly developed verticals to suit their needs.
It’s a revolution full of potential for developers and those building businesses around servicing the industry, with opportunities sprouting from overlooked areas, like testing. Jason Huggins, co-founder and CTO of Sauce Labs, predicts that for software makers to truly differentiate as a SaaS app, they will need to be able to roll out new features and fix problems faster than their competitors — and ensure that their apps work on all browsers, arguably the new ‘operating system’ of the SaaS revolution.
Here’s a brief interview with Huggins, who discusses Sauce Labs’ cloud-based testing service, which helps many businesses address and test their features quickly, expediting the release schedules, product launches and app updates.
How has software development and distribution changed because of the cloud?
There have been many changes in the way we release software. The cloud has made development less complicated as there is no hardware, or a complex suite of software stacks involved. Also, developers that work in the cloud tend to be more agile and deliver quicker value through shorter iterations. Due to complex coordination of multiple teams, the software development process has always been time consuming. With the cloud, a lot of the things needed to develop new software are already built. New user interfaces and features can be created in minutes or hours rather than days or months. Essentially, the cloud has allowed development teams to experience faster sharing of information, less time dealing with infrastructure and greater elasticity for faster results.
What types of applications are you seeing built and developed for the SaaS revolution, and how does this play into the virtualization journey for a small to mid-size organization?
There are all kinds of SaaS apps being built these days, including ones for CRM, HR and accounting. However, we’re seeing these applications become more specialized for specific types of organizations – hence why we think this will ultimately lead to a competitive SaaS revolution down the road. It has turned into more of a “consumerization” of business software – instead of long sales cycles and complicated apps, people are creating easy to signup for, easy to use apps. Not to mention, the cloud has eliminated the need for massive start-up and maintenance costs. Now a company of any size can reap the benefits that originally only the large sized companies had exclusivity due to cost constrains.
Where does Sauce Labs fit into the SaaS revolution?
With all the SaaS apps being built and with more on the horizon, each app without a doubt, will become much more niche and we’re predicting a time when software makers will be competing heavily for customers. In order to win customers and truly differentiate their SaaS app, they will need to be able to roll out new features and fix problems faster than their competitors — and ensure that these apps work on all browsers. This is where we come into the equation.
Sauce Labs provides a cross-browser, cloud-based testing solution called Sauce OnDemand, which allows software makers to test their features across all the different browsers in the cloud – so that they can get them out to customers in days — not weeks or months. Also, since its in the cloud, developers do not have to deal with setting up their own testing infrastructure on premise, which can get expensive and resource intensive. So, essentially, cross browser testing will become an integral part of this SaaS revolution, and what better way to deal with it, then by offloading it to the cloud?
How is SaaS impacting consumers/end users? What about the personal cloud?
Since a lot of well known SaaS apps come with specialized loaded features, they tend to be very fulfilling for end users. Overall, users pay less, because they don’t need to pay for all the people, products, and facilities to run them. Consumers only pay for only what they use and it’s all rolled up into a monthly subscription.
How does this new ‘operating system’ of the SaaS revolution work?
With end users accessing these SaaS applications more and more through the web, the browser is actually becoming more like an operating system, if you think about it. Desktop applications are dying out and its now more important than ever to make sure that these SaaS applications function properly across all these different browsers for software makers to stay competitive.
Any way this ties into mobile?
We’re seeing more developers working on mobile applications, and for the most part, these applications still lack the versatility and functionality of web or even desktop applications. A lot of mobile users cannot view certain websites and if they can, the overall experience is mediocre. So, we definitely think testing these mobile applications will become much more important in the future as more people move away from their desktop and work on the go.
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