StrikeIron Blog

Forecast for More Clouds

"Cloud computing" has been receiving a lot of fanfare as of late. There are several "cloud" companies popping up, new trade shows focused on the topic, and a lot of vendors are talking about various offerings "out in the clouds." Analysts such as The Gartner Group have said cloud computing will be as influential as e-business. Clearly it is an emerging computing model which needs to be considered in the appropriate situations.

First, a "cloud" is simply a term that refers to a complex infrastructure that exists to serve a certain purpose out on the Web. The complexity of the infrastructure is hidden and can be rented for use by accessing it from an endpoint, usually via an application, Website, or even a mobile device. This concept enables a massively scalable technology to then be provided "as a service" to a wide variety of clients who aren't concerned how the technology works, but rather some end result.

This isn't a new concept. For example, we all tap into the electricity cloud every day via the outlets in our house because this is less complex and less costly than trying to maintain our own generators. The cost of this shared electricity infrastructure can be amortized across many customers who don't need to focus effort on power generation, making it an attractive business proposition for everyone involved.

The current "cloud" in the technology business involves computing resources out on the Web. One example is the "data cloud" that StrikeIron has built. This cloud enables our customers to access external data and Web services that exist out on the Web within our data centers rather than buying the hardware to store it, database licenses and software to run it, and the resources to manage it all. It's just easier to tap into the StrikeIron cloud to get this data and share the costs of the external infrastructure with other companies who have the same need.

For example, why download updates to tax rate databases every month, store them in an internal database, integrate it with applications and test with each update? It is much easier to incorporate a single line of code that requests an up-to-date tax rate, whenever it needs one, from the Web. No downloads, no updates, no maintenance, no ongoing testing. It's just dramatically less complex and cheaper to tap into a data cloud rather than managing the data internally. This simplicity and cost reduction for leveraging external data is why StrikeIron has seen the growth that it has. This trend will continue as more and more organizations experience these same results.

Data Operating System

At the Web 2.0 event in New York last week, Tim O'Reilly referred to Web 2.0 as a "data operating system". While "Web 2.0" is a protean term, I really like this particular classification.

If you think about the traditional definitions of an operating system for the computer, you ponder things like management and coordination of the computer's resources and activities, but you also think about a list of "services" that are available to applications and are traditionally accessed via APIs or system calls. This is not only true for desktop computers, but also other forms of computers such as mobile devices, gaming units, and even the iPod.

The same is true with Web 2.0 in that its core resource is data, and that data needs be managed and coordinated, and a lot of which can be accessed is accessible via API.

So while there are many applications out on the Web such as social networking, rich Internet applications on top of Flash, SAAS applications, mashups, and several others, the one commonality is that they are all driven by data. So while there are many shapes, sizes, and formats of data all over the Web, making it availability programmatically via an API is where it becomes most useful. It is this access to these data APIs that a company like StrikeIron is trying to provide the framework, infrastructure, and coordination and management of resources for.

The challenge is that While Web services and data APIs have solved a lot of the old integration problems of the Web, data access, and distributed applications such as platform and programming language independence, they have presented many new challenges as well. These include dealing with multiple types of authentication mechanisms, endless permutations of error and response codes, no interface or data structure standards, and a wide array of new business models. All of these inconsistencies must be dealt with by the builders of this new class of Web 2.0 applications, which in turn requires some pretty complex logic. And as we all know well, complexity limits adoption.

These are the very challenges that we at StrikeIron are focused on. With every Web service/data service API available from StrikeIron, they all have the same interface, same authentication mechanism, the same set of response and error codes, and the same business model. The idea is that this Web API standardization goes along with reducing the complexity of this new age "data operating system" for those who would like to tap into it. And with less complexity always comes increasing adoption.

So whether you are getting credit data from D&B, sales and use tax rates, verifying addresses and phone numbers, integrating financial data from NASDAQ, Zacks, NYSE, or MIdnight Trader, getting maps via API, or sending an SMS message, the API is the always same. So rather than doing fifty separate integrations each with its own set of variables to contend with, only one integration into the great data operating system in the sky is required.

So far it seems to be going well as we have over 1500 customers, all getting a piece of the new D.O.S.

Going Green With Address Verification

We all know that addresses are a very important component of customer and prospect databases. After all, the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) estimates that $173 billion is spent each year on direct marketing campaigns. That's not chicken feed.

These campaigns of course can have their effectiveness substantially decreased if the addresses that serve as the foundation of these campaigns are incomplete or incorrect. To quantify this, the United States Postal Service estimates there will be 6.8 billion mail pieces designated UAA (Undeliverable As Addressed) at a cost of about $2 billion in postage this year.

This of course doesn't include the cost of wasted print and marketing materials, missed opportunities, and poor customer service as a result of bad address data, which can very well be higher.

But suppose you are in the uncommon position that your company is immensely profitable and all of the above are acceptable costs of doing business. Then, there is one more thing to consider concerning bad address data: the environment.

The DMA also estimates that the "green approach" to address data and using tools to ensure address correctness, if effectively used to eliminate all of the mailing waste, could save the equivalent of CO2 emissions from 60,000 cars. Or, 32.4 million gallons of oil when calculating EPA data and UAA weights data.

StrikeIron provides several different services such as US Address Verification, Canada Address Verification, and Global Address Verification which can be integrated into applications, Websites, business processes, or any other place where addresses are stored or collected electronically.

Alternatively, if you have a phone number available within the data, the address and identity of the person or business at that location can be confirmed by using some of our updated-nightly reverse telephone number services.

Not only good for your business, but good old Planet Earth as well.

Text Messaging Use Still Exploding

A statistic was given out by the CTIA Wireless Association at their wireless IT event in San Francisco this week that the total number of text messages sent in June 2008 had reached 75 billion. This is a 160% increase over the number of text messages sent in the same month a year ago. This explosive growth rate is certainly interesting.

Here is the press release on CTIA's Web site detailing this and other survey results: http://www.ctia.org/media/press/body.cfm/prid/1772

Text messaging continues to be a preferred form of communication because of its quick and easy characteristics. However a large part of this growth can also be attributed to an increasing amount of innovation in text messaging utilization, especially in the form of notification and alerting capabilities that are driven by the business logic of various types of applications.

We see many use cases where events that occur over the course of a day spawn a notification message to be sent (within a call center or CRM application for example) to the relevant or potentially interested parties. Another example is customer communication such as when a package is about to arrive, a loan has been approved, or simple appointment reminders - all of which are initiated by machine. Machine originating text messages therefore likely contributed significantly to the sharp increase in total messages uncovered by the survey.

This surge in text message-enabling applications is also partly due to the ease at which it is now possible to be done.  Using products like our Global SMS Pro service, this text messaging API can be easily integrated into just about any type of application and supports over 400 recipient carriers in 180 countries.

I expect this sharp increase in text messaging to continue for some time to Come. Whether it is business applications, or texting your thermostat at home and telling it to wake up and cool off the place before you get home, the innovation in text messaging applications is sure to only grow.