What a peculiar week. No sooner had I finished writing this week’s editorial feature about the lack of credibility in cloud computing for CPM applications than I hear that Guy Haddelton is behind (and in front of) a newly launched supplier of planning and analytical applications in the cloud, called Anaplan. For those of you who are not Adaytum aficionados, Guy Haddleton was the founder of Adaytum who eventually sold the business to Cognos which was in turn acquired by IBM. In a move which is certain to inject much needed credibility into the cloud space, Guy has teamed up with his old chief co-developer Michael Gould (and other Adaytum ‘trekkies’) to form a worthy alternative to the on-premises model. The Anaplan management team have the pedigree and domain knowledge to make this work and the early indications are that others agree. Apparently, people from the Adaytum era are beating a path to Haddleton’s door eager to be a part of a game-changing experience for the second time around. Talking to me in London yesterday I asked Guy to explain his reasons for coming out of retirement. He told me, “I saw that both the technology and vendor business models remained locked in the 1990s; SaaS might have come of age, but at a fundamental level the ‘new' enterprise solutions are just old technology models on a hosted platform.”
“We are going to create havoc” he added. Game on!!
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