The main image on the cover of the upcoming July issue of the WHIR magazine has to do with a feature on the return of physical data center security as an issue, borne by a recent string of notable break-ins and thefts at data centers in the US and UK.
Our starting point for the issue, however, was software as a service. In designing the editorial for July, we began with an idea to assess the SaaS landscape as it stands today. Unmistakably one of the major issues in hosting, the SaaS discussion has evolved somewhat from evangelizing to strategizing - as hosting providers are no longer asking "should I?" but instead asking "how should I?"
It was that shift that we took as the starting point for our SaaS feature, since the idea of hosts talking about SaaS is, in and of itself, nothing new.
We looked at SaaS from the standpoint that hosts, software developers and their customers are largely all on board, philosophically, with the hosted model for application delivery. As a result, the platform builders have shifted their focus from singing the praises of the model itself to promoting their products as the best platform for distributing hosted applications.
With that in mind, Wayne Epperson, a regular on the pages of the WHIR mag, put together a SaaS scoreboard feature, incorporating the input of a long list of platform builders, trendsetters and decision makers, seeking the answers to questions like "what are the right ways to build a SaaS platform?" and "what applications are ready to put into production right now?"
One of the key venues for this sort of messages up to this point has been the Web hosting conferences that take place each year. And I expect them to continue to be interesting as a means of tracking the evolution of that message.
It is fortunate, then, that HostingCon, the biggest of the hosting industry events - which was acquired today by iNet Interactive, if you hadn't seen that news - is right around the corner. We've taken some special steps to tie the issue's content in with HostingCon itself, designed as a kind of primer to help you get the most out of attending the event.
The most obvious of those efforts is a feature by Esther Bauer (another WHIR regular), designed as a kind of primer for getting the most out of the event.
In addition, we've tried to tie the magazine's content throughout to the event by flagging the people and companies in attendance and making it clearer how they can be located at HostingCon.
Speaking of which, as I'm sure we've mentioned elsewhere by now, the entire WHIR news team, along with WHIR tv, will be in attendance at HostingCon this year, delivering our most comprehensive ever coverage of the event through news, features, blogs and video clips. We'll be a media partner, sponsoring the networking lounge at booth #627 in the exhibit hall. And there we'll be giving away a 50" HDTV and an iPod Touch.
Along with the news team, we'll have sales and business development representatives on hand. So those of you going to HostingCon, please stop by the networking lounge.
I promise to mention the lounge ad nauseam over the next couple of weeks.
As for the magazine, if you don't yet have a subscription, you can get a free one here. There's probably still time to sign up in time to receive the July issue. But not much time. So I'd do it about now.
