Rollbase will tomorrow officially launch its do-it-yourself, on-demand application development and delivery platform offering Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for users who aren’t programming experts.
Rollbase can be used to design, develop and deploy custom Web-based applications using intuitive and interactive tools within a web browser. It’s pitched as providing “an easy to learn and flexible toolset in a rich AJAX-based user experience” making “web-based application development possible for people who may not have the time, resources or expertise to create on-demand applications using traditional software development methods.”
In laymen’s terms: it allows the rest of us to design and customize business applications.
Rollbase components include
- wizards for creating database tables, fields, relationships and other application components
- interactive drag and drop page editor with ability to embed any HTML, scripts or widgets
- portal technology for building sophisticated external-facing applications that can be embedded in other Web sites and Web-based applications
- workflow engine with automation, trigger conditions and event queue management
- search engine with global full text search and field-specific indexing control
- Conversion maps for seamless integration between and among all Rollbase applications
- Custom ad-hoc reporting, 2D and 3D animated real-time charting
Rollbase operates in the same space as Force.com, but Rollbase notes that it’s designed for business users that don’t have access to programmers or developers.
TechCrunch readers can click here to sign up for a free 60 day trial account on Rollbase.
If this platform can truly scale this may become very disruptive offering.
Questions for RollBase team:
1) How many employees do you have?
2) Are you using Amazons cloud computing infrastructure or building your own infrastructure? (hope its the former)
3) What’s your pricing model?
4) Are you VC funded? Hope not because IBM/HP/Cap Gemini or other managed services provider will come to buy you soon if you can prove that the model scales.
Congrats!!!!
This cuts straight into our office’s main source of income. I second the questions of Alex. Especially the pricing model.
As I see it: a lot of our customers have very specific needs. Needs I could not work out in the five minutes I’ve spent at rollbase. Especially in PaaS the needs might be so specific from client to client that a platform like Rollbase might not hit the right spot.
Ultimately, it’s going take a lot of work to build a CMS that can actually cover even 10% of what the Pros need without custom coding. But I’m always up for more ways to accomplish the simple stuff.
James
from
http://FaceySpacey.com, Your One Stop Social Media Shop
“it allows the rest of us to design and customize business applications”
it allows the rest of us to design and customize cars
it allows the rest of us to design and customize hardware
it allows the rest of us to design and customize our body
…..
Isn’t it an utopia everyone wants to believe?
Alex, Thanks for the feedback, regarding your questions:
1) We are a small team based in Mountain View, CA
2) All aspects of Rollbase are built on the OpSource OnDemand infrastructure. We looked at a combination of utility computing services and other hosting providers but couldn’t get the level of human support we wanted (OpSource has become a virtual part of our operations team which is what we were looking for)
3) Pricing will be announced in Q2 ‘08. We’re interested in any feedback you have on this.
4) We are angel and self-funded for now
Simon and James,
We agree its early days for PaaS. Our beta launch is just a first step for us and we are aware that it may not address every client’s needs. Our focus is on flexibility and extensibility, so over time the possible uses of Rollbase will continue to broaden. Although no programming expertise is required, building sophisticated apps still takes a good bit of thought and planning in our environment, and hence Rollbase takes more than 5 minutes to learn (so far we’ve seen a few hours rather than minutes is required). Any additional product feedback you have would be valuable.
Thanks,
Matt Robinson
Rollbase
I know these guys well and they have an expansive vision for the future of self service tools for business.
Existing enterprise software in the categories Rollbase covers are bloated and expensive to customize through contractors. Sefl-service & easy to use tools will completely change how business use and purchase enterprise software.
Go rollbase!
@Matt: I was not saying I finished trying it out in 5 minutes
What I meant was that in the 5 minutes most of your possible userbase will spent frolicking around they won’t find 
For one, it wasn’t clear to me that after I added a model I should also add it to the application. It might be more clear if you add a button saying “add this model and add it to my current application” or something. Might be that it’s nighttime over here.
As I am a software developer and that is where I spent most of my time I can clearly see why 5 minutes is not enough to discover full potential of any service. I also have firsthand experience that such services as you allow us to set up are not thought out in a matter of minutes.
Nonetheless I like it, it feels a lot like Django with the models and ease of use (although Django does require coding the models yourself and you put a nice frontend on it).
Matt, I’m sure what you offer is friggin fantastic. I’m interested to see just how far you take it.
James
from
FaceySpacey.com
Well yet another company with a platform. When companies like salesforce and longjump claims to have spent more than a few years building a mature Paas, I wonder how a company with small team and angel fund can build a really scalable system. Good luck to them in this crowded field with a few players having deep pocket and several customers.
This looks relatively stupid. Sorry, but I don’t really get it. This might scale revenue wise to profitably employ 10 people, but outside of that I don’t see anything that is that great.
I would love to see the db structure this is based on, I bet it has a ton of empty fields per row
@9 Ravi
Read Matt’s response in post #5 answer #2.
As far as crowded I’m not sure I follow. Please expand your thoughts here because I’d be very interested in knowing who the players are in the space.
Please don’t confuse this platform for a facebook platform as I think you’d offend their team:)
Re: #10
Scott, we appreciate the candid feedback. You might think of Rollbase as the foundation for a more modern, on-demand version of something like SAP’s Netweaver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetWeaver), PeopleSoft’s PeopleTools, or perhaps an easy to use alternative to Force.com from Salesforce. There is a very large market for this platform approach as evidenced by the general trend in enterprise software and SaaS to provide more self-service customization capabilities.
Regarding the DB structure, this is something we spent a lot of time on and due to its proprietary nature I cannot share more right now. But we’ve been lucky enough to have the guidance of some key technical advisers from leading enterprise SaaS vendors who have successfully dealt with some of the challenges involved.
Hope this helps,
Matt Robinson
Rollbase
“I don’t have to know how to program to make changes.”
The problem is not knowing how to program, it’s knowing which changes to make and if they are worth making.
@Andy
Precisely it is on page 13 of RollBase UserGuide. I can not imagine non IT person will manipulate it.
@10 Scott
…..a good place to start to read about DB.
At the SaaS I founded this became CRITICAL, and hence why Sun Micro paid $1B for MySQL. Happy reading!!!
http://www.mysql.com/products/database/cluster/
Matt,
You probably know this better than I do, but, applications such as CRM will require lots more horse power than an offering such as Taleo’s (HR). This is due to the nature of the real-time *reports* your customers will require. (good luck bud, load up on RAM and CPU’s). Cheers!
As a relatively non-techie, with a business background (I’ve run a $120m computer services business with a number of software developers), I’m very interested in this tool. I often have ideas for new web based services and would like to create a prototype.
It would be good if Rollbase allowed a single user version (maybe with limited database entries) for free, just like Salesforce. This would allow prototypes to be developed.
If a business only wanted an application for a specific number of users (e.g. 100), then scalability wouldn’t be a problem.
If the application was intended for unlimited web users, then maybe it would be great for a private beta (or limited beta). Rollbase could charge for this. The start-up could then move to fund raising for developing a bespoke application, if scaling was a problem with the Rollbase product.
As far as pricing is concerned, I think the key would be to match it to the size of application. Rollbase could charge on the basis of number of users and size of database. It should reserve the right to audit the application to verify the data.
This sounds really exciting. Let me know if you need an experienced CEO in the future!
Very best of luck.
Alan
Matt,
salesforce.com invested in our product which allows them to know how the end-user is experiencing their entire on-demand applications. And then enables them to do near-root-cause troubleshooting.
End-user performance of the developed apps will be key to success. Perhaps we can talk and see how we can complement your infrastructure at OpSource. I work with them as well.
Tim
Our company has been using the beta version of this product to design simple apps to help us keep track of billing and shipping expenses. From a business perspective, this tool is easy to deploy, customize, and implement. It is helping us reduce costs.
We’ve used this application for a while, and we still have not taken advantage of all the customization available to us. There is more potential for us with Rollbase, and I can only imagine how much potential Rollbase has as more businesses adopt this tool and create their own custom apps with it.
Alan and Tim (16 and 17),
We’d enjoy speaking with you about your ideas. You can contact us via email at info at rollbase dot com, or via phone at 650-265-4282.
Matt Robinson
Rollbase