Watch the Mosso-Zapproved Presentation at SaaScon

As we posted a few weeks ago, Zapproved had the privilege of co-presenting with our partners at Mosso|The Rackspace Cloud on March 31st.  Over the last two days, Mosso posted the entire presention on their blog.

They were kind enough to do some light editing to touch up video to make it little easier to watch.  These videos first appeared on two posts entitled “Calculating the Cost of Cloud Computing – $232″ and “Rackspace Cloud Defines Three Cla-SaaS-ic Mistakes.”

Even though he went second, here’s our own VP of Engineering Andy Neville:

 

Next up is Emil Sayegh, Mosso’ GM:

 

Have any thoughts or experiences of your own to add?  Please leave us a comment below!

Our Two Cents on the Open Cloud Manifesto

If you follow cloud computing, then I’m sure you are well aware of the saga that is the Open Cloud Manifesto. Much has been written, some favorable, some not and others have been balanced.

For those who may not be familiar with the Manifesto, here’s a quick overview: On March 30th, a consortium published a document outlining a set of ideas about agreeing to a set of standards that would keep cloud computing open and accessible. The group was trying to pre-empt a standards war of competing commercial interests that could ultimately force cloud customers to choose a provider and architecture that would commit them to a specific company. Much was made of the haphazard way the Manifesto was rolled out. It appeared to draw false lines of demarcation between supporters and non-supporters. In the ensuing couple of weeks, the noise has died down and now the interested parties are participating in a dialog—and that’s a good thing.

The rushed and messy announcement notwithstanding, the idea of setting some organizing principles for open cloud computing is a concept with merit. In fact, for us it is critical. Zapproved is both a provider and customer of cloud services, so our viability relies on being able to cost effectively use cloud services and provide our own service to our users. We are the embodiment of the cloud’s value proposition of “Minimizing Startup Costs” as defined in the Manifesto.

The possibility of a cloud ecosystem where we would be beholden to a single vendor’s cloud platform would increase our business risks dramatically. We believe we should be free to move choose our business partners as we like. Our apps and data should be completely portable. Period.

This is critical because it will ensure that an open market for services that will drive further cloud infrastructure investments and keep costs competitive. Plus, it will keep the risks low in order to encourage continued investments in cloud-based startups. That’s good for us, but it’s also good for the industry and economy as a whole.

We support and embrace the core principles of the Open Cloud Manifesto and will contribute to upholding those concepts as best we can. Hopefully the participants will in good faith pursue conversations that will see the ideas of the core principles realized.  

The Power of Partnership: Mosso and Zapproved

Emil Sayegh and Andy Neville at SaaScon09

This post is being dispatched from the Santa Clara Convention Center where we’re attending Computerworld’s SaaScon 2009 show. Our VP of Engineering Andy Neville was invited by Emil Sayegh, GM of Mosso|The Rackspace Cloud, to participate in a presentation about the economics of cloud computing. The room was packed with attendees who learned about Mosso’s cloud offering and how we have been able to build a business with minimal capital investment. Based on the reaction and Emil and Andy’s rock star status, it definitely struck a chord.

While the presentation was a great opportunity for us to share our story, getting a chance to connect with one of our most important partners was even better. The team at Mosso has been a critical component in our success. The solution they offer is extremely easy to implement, presents a great value and their “fanatical customer support” lives up to its name!

As Andy said in our joint announcement regarding Mosso’s dynamic scalability handling surges from blog traffic, “It’s been great to not worry about whether or not these spikes would take down the site,” said Neville.  “Working with the Mosso team has allowed us to focus on developing our business and not worry about what’s happening with the site.”

As a startup, Zapproved’s future is dependent on keeping our customers happy with a reliable service that will grow with us. We are proud to work with Emil and his team and look forward to building our business with Mosso’s ongoing help. They are a quality team with a quality service, so it will be a pleasure to continue to work side-by-side as we move ahead!