Appirio Defining Systems Integration in the Cloud

SaaS in the enterprise 

Ever wonder why a business looking to adopt a cloud-based application would need a systems integrator? Doesn't the cloud shift systems complexity to the provider?

Appirio, a six-year old cloud integrator, is not just redefining systems integration, it is in the hunt for a big chunk of the $500 billion spent globally on SI services.

Cloud systems integration (SI) is very different from traditional SI. SI in the cloud does not require a team of engineers at the customer site. In fact, the engineers or developers could be anywhere in the world. In the case of San Francisco-based Appirio, the engineer or developer could be working on a customer's Workday or a Salesforce.com instance from Singapore, Ireland, India, UK, or Japan. One of the sharp differences between cloud SI and traditional SI is the fact that everyone's Salesforce.com or Workday application is the same. There are no trade secrets buried in the configuration.

"A developer anywhere in the world can spin up an instance of a Google App engine or whatever and you can start building code for me," Nara Balakrishna, Appirio's senior director of strategy and business operations, told SaaS in the Enterprise. "You could not do that if you had SAP. There is no way I can expose my configuration to you somewhere in the world where I don't even know you."

That allowed Appirio to assemble a cloud-sourcing community of 45,000 developers located all over the world to supplement its staff of 500.