On Moving Toward Software Rentals

CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue has an article about the emergence of a service-oriented model of software delivery, supported by the W3C, IBM, HP, and Microsoft. They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language). The article primarily covers the three phases of negotiating, ending with actual service delivery."

Comments

"Service Delivery"

[Gothmolly]

will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets. The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment, both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[bsharitt]

There's no use in fighting it. They've already got acronyms. When the acronyms come out it's all over.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[iamatlas]

The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery

So....basically it will create more jobs in the IT sector. If software and implementation were uniformly perfect for all applications and systems, I know that I and many others would be out of a job. That being the case, I for one welcome our new subscribtion-based overlords.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[flacco]

will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets.

or it could be a simple web app with some enhancements/extensions as envisioned by the whatwg, behaving as browser users expect it to behave, designed around internet response times, and thus providing response times that browser users are accustomed to.

currently i'm moving a client from a godforsaken ms-access app that i wrote many years ago to a web-based application that i intend to host on my own hosted virtual server. no more installation issues to deal with, no more relinking tables every time i ship a new version, no more ms-access-on-the-client requirement to deal with... when i have a new version ready i just upload it to the server and we're done.

i *am* looking forward to whatwg-like extensions, though, because the user interface is taking a step backward, from the user's perspective. whatwg should address some of those shortcomings.

The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment,

further argument for web applications. but again - must... improve... interface... !

both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

unless a competitor comes along and says "why are you messing around with all that complicated proprietary not-thin-enough client technology for? here is my alternative, which is standards-compliant and requires only a web browser to use." (granted, perhaps a mozilla-based browser, but you'd just be doing them a favor anyway if they're not using one already).

go whatwg, go!

Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[rpbailey1642]

I, for one, am terrified of this. In the first, if you are only renting the software, you do not really own it, so they can basically monitor you, or refuse access to the software if they want. Second, they have to have some way to monitor if the software is working or not, depending on your subscription time, which means either every (SUBSCRIPTION TIME) you'll have to reregister and reenter your code, or they will need to have access to your system (via the network, or in the real world) to reactivate it. Scary.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[NanoGator]

Okay, that's 'the glass is half empty' reaction. What about 'the glass is half full'?

a.) We all know that software promises are iffy at best. When you need to get a job done, and software promises to do it, it really is no guarantee, is it? Demo ware is sometimes helpful, but few companies do it right. (I'd like to nod in Macromedia and Alias's general direction for making their demo ware work right.) Basically, what they want you to do is buy their software and ... well.. you're stuck with it if it doesn't do what you ask.

My company recently ran into this. There's an app called ZBrush used for texturing 3D models. It has some really cool features that make organic modelling and texturing quite pleasant. (You've seen this software's work in the latter 2 of the LotR movies.) Unfortunately, it's a ~$500 app, and they haven't released a demo yet. We ended up getting it after watching a live demo at Siggraph, but man, that was a happy coincidence in timing. If we could have 'rented' the software for a week to evaluate it, we'd have been a lot happier.

b.) Always up to date! Imagine not needing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an upgrade. As long as you're subscribing, you should (in theory, anyway) be using the most up to date software. Done right, this could mean virtually instantaneous security updates, for example. No more people lagging behind with older software perpetuating the problem. No more "I can't open that file!" Etc.

c.) Mobile licenses. More and more companies are trying to prevent people from installing software on multiple machines. Sadly, those of us with laptops and home stations to do work on get bitten. I'll go back to ZBrush's example. They have a locking scheme kind of like Windows'. It id's itself to your hardware, and that's it, that's the only software you can unlock to. Unless I call them up and ask them politely (and I've heard they are quite happy to do this...) to unlock my software, I can only use it on the one station. Doh. If done right, I should just be able to log in to a server and say "I wanna use this", it'll check that nobody else is using it, and allow it to run. Sort of like how ICQ works.

d.) Spend less money. I'll use ZBrush as an example, again. First off, I'm reasonably certain that in order to make the subscription scheme work, it has to be competitive with the cost of buying the software outright. I've heard this a number of times before. (Remember, this is 'the glass half full' comparison, not a prediction) My company is going to reach a point where ZBrush will probably be inactive for a long time. If we could cancel/suspend the subscription then, at the end of a year, we could potentially spend less than we did to buy it a month ago.

Now, I want to reiterate something here. This is simply an optimist's view. Who knows how it'll play out? The worst that'll happen is nobody will want to use it. The best is that we get an experience better than we have today. Works for me.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[TheGavster]

How about this scenario: You do a bunch of work for a major client. Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one. Sorry 'bout that. Conclusion: you're screwed, you no longer have the option of running the old files on the old version until you've migrated, etc. And don't tell me that software vendors don't break backwards compatibility all the time, either.

By the way, ZBrush now offers a demo: http://pixologic.com/support/contents.html

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[ScrewMaster]

Well, I hope that you are correct in that free-market forces will be able to determine what is best. The real question is whether they will even be allowed to. My own feeling (I know, half-empty, doom and gloom) is that the free-market (i.e., the user base) will have little say in the matter. There is so much desire to maximize profit (as in "squeeze water from a rock") among big software companies that I fear the idea of a total end-user lock-in is irresistible. And as broadband penetration becomes more and more significant (apparently this year the number of high-speed installations exceeded the number of dial-ups) this scheme will become even easier to foist upon us.

Personally, I detest the idea of automatic updates. I don't want my software changing until I have reviewed whatever the new version offers and have made a considered decision to upgrade. It would be hell on a corporation if Microsoft decided to "autoupgrade" all of its users and suddenly all the user menus changed. Nobody would be able to do anything and productivity would come to a screeching halt. That's an extreme example, of course, but, honestly, most users would rather the software they have simply work in the manner to which they've become accustomed and not be "upgraded" (i.e., change) all the time forcing yet another learning curve. How many of us really use any more than 1% of all the stuff built into, say, Microsoft Office? And if we did learn everything it can do, by the time we have the latest version will have changed so much that our efforts would have been wasted. Office is so complex and so full of features and is such a continually moving target from the user's perspective that having it mutate even more often would hardly be perceived as an improvement.

And all of this "software as a subscription" business depends entirely upon a reliable Internet (ha) and a software supplier that is able to effectively build and maintain the required network infrastructure. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted to manage a big network: for example, their instant messaging services have had repeated failures on a global scale. I, for one, would not be happy if my company was unable to even send an email because Microsoft's subscription management servers went offline for a while. And that will happen, you know that. And what happens when a company suffers an Internet outage and can't get access to the server-side component of their critical business applications? No, there are definite advantages to maintaining ownership of important software and being as independent as possible of the vendor.

Nice idea, but...

[bblazer]

This sounds like a great idea. There have been times when I needed a piece of software just for a one or two time use, and the only things out there for my particular need had high license fees. However, what bothers me is that MS is involved with it. I am worried that they will make the technology OS specific, and finally get a foothold in the internet 'standards' (read MS standards) that they have been trying to do for so long.

Licensing for Service Delivery.

[ron_ivi]

This seems an interesting hole in the GPL - use GPL'd technology, but only deliver thing parts of the client to the users; and keep all your GPL-tech-using-yet-proprietary stuff on your server. Since you never "distribute" the server side code, seems it is your to do whatever you want with it.

Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

I think no existing license covers that need very well today.

What is it 2001 all over again?

[Asprin]

I thought the market already rejected this idea!

Oh well, even if they didn't, I can't see this approach finding any more than a niche market because for commodity software, the price has to be low enough to outweigh the benefits of ownership.

Nobody is going to pay $150/year to rent MS Office Pro when OpenOffice is free to own. $30/year, maybe, but then MS has to make a decision about whether that price is too low to be worthwhile. Actually, at $30/year *I* have to wonder if it's worth it, but then I can't stand the last few version of office because of all the annoying "non-features" I have to turn off to get actual work done.

Web applications anyone?

[SlashdotMeNow]

I don't know what the hell this article is all about. Software as a service EXISTS ALREADY and has been around for years! Ever heard of web-applications? Like, say WEB MAIL?!?!

Thin client = web browser.

We run a subscription-based software service, over the web. As the net gets faster, latency goes down, and web-apps will become more and more like desktop apps. Sure desktop apps will always be a bit faster, but for many applications an HTML interface works just fine.

All these new acronyms are just a waste of time. The only thing it will achieve is a PhD for whoever the idiot is that worked on those specs.

Dequeue ACM Queue

[Jeffrey Baker]

The ACM Queue is an interesting publication. Every month they turn it over to a vendor to promote their latest scheme. It's a brilliant advertising vehicle, where the magazine *is* the advertisement. For example, an article in the May issue on the benefits of TCP offload engines written by iReady, makers of TCP offload engines. In the same issue, an article on why text mining is replacing information retrieval, from a company who would like to sell you text mining software. And that's just me flipping through the first issue I could find laying about my home. I think everything between the covers of the ACM Queue should be ignored.

Software architecture term, not business model

[boatboy]

SOA refers to a method of software architecture that is en vouge- not just a sneaky business model as the post suggests. I'm sure some businesses will jump on the SOA bandwagon for the idea of subscriber-based income, but those that do so for that reason alone will fail.

Web Services, WSDL, etc., all parts of implementing SOA, are essentially ways to provide software services via some network transport (typically HTTP). This makes sense for alot of things. For example, integrating inventory systems in real time. In days gone by, Company A would provide some random way for Company B to access it's inventory/price sheet. Text files, spreadsheets, EDI, etc. All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.

Ironically, this allows for more diversity in the actual implementations. It doesn't matter if your service is provided on a $20,000 HP/W2K3 box running IIS or a $200 Linux box running Apache- as long as it provides a description of it's service, others can consume it- again using whatever language they choose. There are already implementations for most of these standards for Java, PHP, Perl, .NET, C++, and many other languages.

So, put up the tin foil, this isn't a massive conspiracy to get you to pay each time you open your "word processor service." It's just a better way to provide data services where they make sense.

Ah yes! Finally!

[st0rmshad0w]

I for one am all over this, please please please let the operational state of my crappy ISP's routers determine whether or not I can get any work done!

"Sorry boss, I can't get that report to you cuz some part of the internet's down."

I do not get it.

[angel'o'sphere]

What has UDDI, WSDL and WSFL to do with renting of software?
No I did not RTFA ....
The poster of the story should have made his story better to get me to RTFA ...
WSDL ^= CORBA IDL for XML RPC aka SOAP
UDDI ^= universal directory and discovery service, aka a phonebook or DNS for SOAP
WSFL ^= web sergvice flow language aka process or work flow definition for web services or web based applications

That all is TECHNIQUE,
renting is a BUSINESS MODEL.

Most of the poster to this article seem not to see that difference.

angel'o'sphere

The final stage of intellectual property law?

[ShatteredDream]

The first step for the corporate elite in the 1870s-1930s was to try to remove the idea from the public consciousness that natural law is a legitimate basis for our legal system. Then it began to push for a steady expansion of intellectual property law into previously unacceptable domains. Originally patents were very hard to get, you had to produce something truly unique, now you can patent business models!

This is all part of a general push away from an ownership society to a corporatist renter society. Capitalism is not to blame here, fascism is, because it is capitalist doctrine that is directly at odds with copyright holders. Capitalism gave us the concept of a government protecting everyone's property rights and not regulating most aspects of the economy to ensure that no class of business had an advantage over another. It was fascism that gave birth to the idea of controlling the economy to "protect industry."

The software rental model is intended to be the final blow to the idea that customers should have a property right in software. Pseudo-capitalists can come out all they like about how "choice" is what really matters, but choice is utterly irrelevent in every respect when basic property rights are not an option anymore. When no one can own their software in any way, to any degree, the difference between competitors becomes inherently pathetic and trite, just like the major parties in 2000 and 2004.

So what happens? Software companies use patents to protect their business model where copyright law isn't enough, by going after upstarts offering an ownership-friendly model.

But what many geeks and nerds won't get out of this, is that this battle has been raging for not a few decades but for about 144, the first battle being the American Civil War. The public schools frequently gloss over three very curious facts about the Civil War, because that would make Abraham Lincoln look like the most fascist stooge in American history:

• The south seceded over the tariff, even Karl Marx said that the tariff, not slavery, was the issue.
• The founders of the CSA, when you read a bit of their writings, were rabidly anti-corporation by the standards of their day, and despised the system of "internal development" which was basically corporate welfare that was fueled by the tariff.
• Over 600,000 Americans, by today's population about 4,200,000-5,000,000 died in a war to protect the rights of corporations. Kinda hard to argue it was to protect slaves, and not corporations, seeing as how it came hot on the heels of the dred scott ruling.

Now does it become clearer, when you consider the almost 1 and a half century history of this fight, why the federal government really is a government of the people, by the people and for the corporations? Look at the push for things like UCITA, the goal is to essentially in the long run whittle down and destroy the state contract laws and nationalize them, so that the states, the governments much closer to you and your wishes, and thus further from corporate control than the feds, cannot protect you from the monied interests.

There never has been a conspiracy, because the elite has always had the audacity to operate in the open. For the last several decades, they have unabashedly eschewed any pretense of being Adam Smith-style capitalists and their economic model draws upon a more sophisticated, and moderately liberal version of Mussolini's fascist doctrines. What do you think, "protecting and advancing American economic interests" really means? Adam Smith would call it that vile system of Mercantilism which was an influence on socialism and at odds with laisez faire capitalism.

People have asked me why I vote libertarian, it is because they are capitalists. The party was born and bred from an ideological pedigree concerned with the minimization of the elite's power and influence and the preservation of an ownership society

Re:Um...I thought that according to the EULA...

[base3]

Even giving that that EULA's a binding contract, you have a perpetual right to use that version of Windows. This is what software companies want to see go away. Product activation was the first step in that direction, and "web services" and ASPs are the next.