Senior officials at the Redwood City, California-based software firm detailed a strategic roadmap for delivering software-as-a-service data integration to covers both intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise requirements.
But Informatica’s move doesn’t make it a SaaS provider in its own right. Rather it is delivering a SaaS model aimed at outsourcing partners to let their clients expedite data integration projects spanning both their on-premises and outsourced applications.
We’re pursuing a partner-centric model, said Brian Gentile, Informatica’s newly appointed chief marketing officer. We’re providing the underlying infrastructure that will enable our partners to host data integration services to clients that integrate data residing beyond the enterprise as part of their outsourced operations.
We don’t intend to be a data integration application hoster ourselves, Gentile added. But he did not rule out such a move in the future.
For now Informatica said it would deliver its Informatica On-Demand offering as part of phased rollout, starting with its PowerCenter Connect for Salesforce.com’s SaaS offering, which it announced at the conference.
The connector software lets companies integrate (i.e. transform, migrate, consolidate, synchronize) Salesforce.com managed data with data sourced from on-premises applications.
We are removing the distinction between on- and off-premises data, allowing both to be managed the same way using the same definitions, transforms and cleansing logic, said Ivan Chong, vice president of product marketing at Informatica.
Chong said the PowerCenter Connect for Salesforce.com connector has been certified for AppExchange, an on-demand application sharing service set up by Salesforce.com last year.
PowerCenter Connect for Salesforce.com will be generally available in the third quarter of 2006. It is expected to be the first in a series of similar connectors to other SaaS applications that Informatica plans to develop.
The second phase, Chong explained, involves exposing PowerCenter data integration functionality as a SaaS experience in applications like Salesforce.com.
He said the goal is to let a select band of SaaS partners develop hosted, application-specific self-serve mapping templates – for data migration, synchronization, profiling, cleansing, standardization and synchronization and so on – that can be exposed through the Web-based interfaces of SaaS applications.
The templates will be integrated as simple GUIs — SaaS tabs — that transparently embed data integration capabilities as part of the SaaS user experience.
Chong said that Informatica would work with partners to build the PowerCenter tabs, which would also tap into the newly acquired data quality products that Informatica acquired from Similarity Systems Ltd earlier this year.
Chong added that these GUI tabs would differ from standard PowerCenter user interfaces. They will be suited for business analysts and other business users beyond the traditional IT profile, allowing partners and customers to extend self-serve data integration to non-technical users.
We acknowledge that many SaaS customers, including Salesforce.com, are not proficient in Informatica, he said. We are therefore embedding [data integration] functionality as simple and transparent user interfaces embedded into core application processes.
The hosted PowerCenter capabilities will be made available to Informatica’s SaaS partners as part of a limited release in the third quarter. A full release is slated for the fourth quarter.
Informatica has yet to work out specific packaging and pricing schemes.
The final milestone of the roadmap involves the delivery of a complete multi-tenant SaaS data integration model branded as Informatica On-Demand Integration Platform.
Chong said the platform would be aimed squarely at SaaS application providers and business process outsourcing (BPO) firms.
This will be a general purpose data integration platform that BPOs can host themselves as a part of an integration competency center, Chong said.
The platform will leverage modern technologies like Web 2.0 and Ajax thin clients to develop and deploy the embedded SaaS tabs in hosted multi-tenant environments.
Chong said this would negate the need for companies to install any special software.
The new On Demand Platform will be available on a limited basis to Informatica’s partners in the fourth quarter of 2006, with general availability scheduled for the first quarter of 2007.
Informatica’s move to SaaS should not come as a surprise. It is really part of the company’s grand vision of providing cross-enterprise data integration — something the company first articulated a couple of years back when new CEO Sohaib Abbasi took over at the helm.
Informatica has now started to flesh out that strategy from a product perspective, as witnessed by the Zeus and Hercules versions of PowerCenter.
Zeus, which was released last year, came with several advances including significantly bumped up enterprise-class security that securely integrates data across corporate firewalls.
Hercules, which is expected to be rolled out in the first quarter of 2007, will evolve PowerCenter to a shared-services SOA that integrates all types of data integration projects onto a single platform using a set of reusable and open services architected to work seamlessly together
As a company we’ve been on a broader data integration path for last few years, said Gentile.
In particular, Informatica has a keen eye on the $70bn BPO market, which it sees as its next big opportunities. Like SaaS, BPO is growing at a rate of 25% per year.
A common theme across BPO and SaaS is that data no longer resides in silos, which presents a formidable challenge for data integration in terms of fragmentation across the enterprise.
As companies deploy SaaS and outsource more non-core business functions to outsourced service providers, the associated business data is also outsourced which means that companies risk losing control and overall visibility into their corporate data.
For example, outsourcing means that data silos that once existed within companies are now extended across organizational boundaries adding a new dimension of complexity in order to get a holistic view.
Informatica maintains that the proliferation of SaaS and outsourcing business model will be a key driver for data integration technologies over the next five years.
A recent survey of Informatica customers shows that nearly 95% regarded cross-enterprise data integration as a ‘critical’ technology. Significantly 5% to 15% of a typical BPO engagement is data integration, but little of that is automated right now.
Informatica is cozying up to Salesforce.com as a way to showcase its SaaS competency. It was notable that Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff was among the keynote speakers on the opening day of the Informatica user conference.
Gentile said Informatica initially chose to target Salesforce.com applications because it is the undisputed leader in SaaS right now, with over 20,700 customers subscribed to its on-demand CRM system. He also pointed to over 250 applications created by Salesforce.com and its partners that are now listed on AppExchange.
While Informatica and Salesforce.com share only a dozen or so customers right now, Gentile said a growing percentage of Salesforce.com’s business is coming from larger deployments, which plays to Informatica’s enterprise data integration strengths.
Partnering with a SaaS leader like Salesforce.com brings clarity to what we are trying to achieve, Gentile said.
To encourage more cross-enterprise data integration initiatives, Informatica is also launching a new partner program that encourages outsourcing partners to include Informatica’s software as part of their overall service offerings.
The program is open to select BPOs and managed application service providers worldwide, including those outsourcing firms that currently rely on Informatica technology. These include HR applications providers ADP, Hewitt and Mellon, payment processing firms like First Data and Paymentech and medical processing companies like EDS and Unisys.
The new service provider program offers subscription and royalty-based licensing options that mirror outsourcing firms’ service-based delivery models.
Partners also get access to technical training and support and have an opportunity to engage in joint sales and marketing with Informatica.
We want to create a thriving on-demand eco-system of partners that use Informatica for data integration both for on-premise data and outsourced operations.
Gentile noted that while SaaS vendors like Salesforce.com and NetSuite are focusing on higher-level business applications, Informatica has similar ambitions but at the infrastructure layer.
We believe we’re breaking new ground at the lower level of the software stack by delivering data integration in an on-demand fashion.
