MetraNet is a complete charging, billing, settlement and customer care product for SaaS and Cloud Computing service providers.
“If computers of the kind I have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility... The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry.”
John McCarthy, MIT Centennial in 1961
“…we see the SaaS movement as a business model movement, where intelligent software architects have identified an attractive way to reach small- and medium-sized customers, hard-to-reach verticals as well as sub-departments within large enterprises.”
Thomas Weisel Partners
STARING DOWN GIANTS: SaaS Takes on the Software Heavyweights
Utility computing, by any name, is an old concept that has finally come of age. It’s now clear that Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing will redefine the hardware, software and IT markets. However, some fundamental questions remain: “What is the next set of killer applications?” and “What are the enduring business models?” As we’ve seen during the telecom and dotcom bubbles, the global market has limited patience for “me too” technologies, strategies or approaches. Being early or even first in a given market segment with a basic service, no CAPX and a painless implementation methodology won’t remain a winning model for long.
Increasingly, it’s less about what you sell and more about how you sell it: How tightly defined is the market? Direct or indirect sales? Subscription, usage or advertising-funded? Single vendor solution or robust ecosystem? SaaS or Software+SaaS?... or a hybrid of all of the above.
Cloud computing is evolving at such a rapid rate that today’s differentiated offering can quickly become tomorrow’s commodity. Unlike telecom offerings which took decades to become commoditized “pipes”, cloud computing offerings face credible competition that is both immediate and global. Providers must not only have an infrastructure to innovate their own business models, they should provide similar capabilities to their customers too. For example, many cloud computing customers will build mashups and SaaS offerings. Once built, the next logical step is determining how to distribute and monetize them – “Without billing it’s just a hobby.”™ Providing these customers with the ability to seamlessly monetize their offerings creates a sticky relationship and a new revenue stream.
MetraNet for SaaS and Cloud Computing
Both SaaS and Cloud Computing have high business model velocities which require the ability to quickly, safely and cost effectively meet market and strategic demands without compromising. MetraNet does not dictate processes, workflows, data models or interface mechanisms, but rather allows these to be configured from first principles. As a result, it conforms to the business rather than requiring the business to make compromises to accommodate the product. We term this singular capability Dynamic Business Modeling.
MetraNet offers a complete charging, billing, customer care and settlement product for SaaS and Cloud Computing providers. The following list a subset of the applicable features:
| Application Charges
| - Named, concurrent and ad-hoc seats
- Usage-based consumption (duration, events, etc.)
- SLA violation calculations
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| Resource Charges | - Storage (GB-Month, million I/O requests, etc.)
- Bandwidth (public Internet inbound/outbound, same cloud, regional cloud)
- Computing (CPU Hours, RAM Hours, Service Units, etc.)
- Configurable server instance types and “farms”
- Configurable metrics: Aggregate (total), 95th percentile, flex and auto-scale
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| Order Entry, Service Activation and Customer Care | - Zero-touch activation and self-care
- Drag-and-drop configuration of screen layouts, workflows, and data-capture points
- Customer lifecycle management
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| B2B | In addition to standard B2C features: - Easily configure complex contracts on a one-to-one basis
- N-Level, effective dated hierarchies with individual or template-based prices, subscriptions and address information
- Hierarchy independent payment/discount redirection, management, discount group, etc.
- Support large multinationals with multiple languages, currencies, tax calculations, invoices, etc.
- Incorporate financial terms that enable negotiation beyond “price” (e.g., tailored SLA’s and associated penalties).
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| Eco-System and Mashup Settlement | - Manage and compensate partners for any number and type of business model (aggregation, brokering, white labeling, mashups, federated, wholesale, etc.)
- Multipoint modeling of any number of partners within the value chain, and determine individual terms with each partner on a per service basis
- Calculate commissions for VARs and agents as well as referral fees for referring partners
- Settle the difference between the wholesale and retail rates for Billing-on-Behalf-of (BoBo) scenarios
- Allocate Service Level Agreement (SLA) penalties across the value chain based on fault
- Accurately model contractual clauses in all aspects of the financial relationship including payment terms, disputes, taxation and currency requirements
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| Professional Services | - Setup fees
- Training
- Data migration, integration, customization, etc.
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