Featured Startup on Azure - Corent Technology

The folks at Corent have an interesting SaaS solution that they have put on Azure.  Their solution, which they call SurPaaS™,  supports Windows Azure as follows:

 

  • Any software vendor can now deploy & SaaSify their application in Windows Azure Cloud.
  • Moreover, if an MSP wants to offer SaaS & Enablement Services to customers, it can install the SurPaaS™Platform in Windows Azure and can start offering the service.

We sat down recently with Shafi Syed, Co-founder and EVP Engineering, Corent Technology to talk about his company and his solution. 

 

How is Azure implemented in your solution

All the required VM features of Azure at API level are supported by our platform.

How did you get excited about Azure?

Azure has simple, elegant and easy to understand GUI with salient features. It is one of the fastest growing PaaS & IaaS. Now its time to add Corent’s SurPaaS™ to it to make it even more powerful and a one-stop-shop Cloud for ISVs.

 

 

 

What were the Azure features that prompted you to decide to build on Azure?

Some of the Azure features that prompted us to build on Azure are:

  • Instant VM and Image creation
  • Data Management, Business Analytics, Identity, Messaging, Media and Mobil service support
  • Build Sites instantly using ASP.NET, PHP, Node.JS, etc.


Shafi Syed, Co-founder and EVP Engineering, Corent Technology

 

Do you build for scale first, or for revenue? How are those things related in your mind?

First we enable software vendors to offer a SaaS solution in days, by eliminating time to market and capital budget required for transforming software to SaaS. Now that they are generating revenue and doing a land grab in the market, “SurPaaS™ provides the Operations and Management capabilities that enable them to scale their SaaS business. In other words, SurPaaS™ provides significant level of capital budget efficiency to and dramatic reduction in “time to market” – two key advantages for our customers

Do you make reasonable predictions about how you are going to achieve revenue and then test them out, or do you start with a business model and deploy it, to see if it brings in revenue?

Our revenue model is based on value creation for our customers and aligned with their economic models.  We provide something that is oxygen to our clients, and charge them a fraction of what it will cost them to do it themselves, and do it in a fraction of the time. We also provide customers flexible payment terms to fully align with their financial and business models.

What questions do you think a startup non-technical founder needs to answer when considering a cloud architecture for his or her startup, and I am thinking specifically here during the business model generation period?

To distinguish their “Core” from their “Context”, and to do the Core themselves and outsource the Context. For example, just because you have a CRM for the Pharmaceutical industry, should you design and develop your own database, or you own app server, or your own multi-tenancy capability? Should you build your own data center or rely on a Cloud Service Provider that has critical mass and scale and provide you better cloud services that you can do for yourself? In other words, the founder or CEO should focus on what they can do best in the world and outsource the rest. We at Corent do the SaaS enablement of software apps, that is our Core and we provide that to our customers who wish to become SaaS Providers!  We recommend software vendors leverage their business domain expertise to build their software, and use the specialized SaaS expertise built into Corent’s SurPaaS™ to transform their software into SaaS, immediately and cost effectively.

What questions do you and your technical co-founder / engineering team feel are the most important to solve about the business aspects of your company?

Eliminate the traditional sales team as “the middleman” and allow customers to on-board on a self-service basis and try the technology first hand. SurPaaS™ enables that model, which makes SaaS transformation much more of a routine activity instead of a complex and burdensome project that gets in the way of going to market as SaaS.

Where do you include technical members of your team during the building of your business plan?

They are an essential part during the building of the business plan. If they cannot build it, our plans will just be “plans”!

How much of what you are building is based on leaving a legacy and how much of it is based on technical challenges, or the ability to make something just for fun? In other words, where do you fall on the seriousness scale? For fun, for profit, for life?

We are 100% serious and committed to making a lasting impact in the industry. Our fully patented technology is a game changer and disrupts the way SaaS solutions have been built and operated in the last decade.  Industry insiders say “Corent is the ‘Intel® inside’ for the Cloud,” or “What  VMware® has done for hardware, Corent is now doing for Software.” Our definition of FUN is Fundamental, Unbelievable, No-nonsense!

What impact or legacy do you hope to make in the market and in the business world?

We created Corent with the intention of disrupting innovation in the area of Software as a Service (SaaS). Corent is modeled after the “Intel Inside”® concept. Intel developed the core processor for computing and made it available to everyone. Technology companies became PC vendors practically overnight because they used the proven core computing capabilities that Intel provided to them at a fraction of the cost and time it would have taken each of them to come up with a similar processor.  Corent has developed a “software engine” to act as the core of modern SaaS enterprise software applications. Every software application company does not have to reinvent the wheel and develop all the core capabilities itself. Instead, they can focus on their own core competencies and their specific domain expertise.

Corent SurPaaS™ accelerates the shift to cloud by transforming software to SaaS – rapidly and cost effectively – SaaS in Days, not months or years! SurPaaS™ puts the “aaS” (as a Service) in SaaS.

What characteristics do you possess that make you an entrepreneur? What makes your startup a startup?

TOTAL dedication, passion, and tenacity towards making our vision a reality.  Have the determination, and resolve to gather all the necessary resources, including talent, funding, and capabilities to invent and innovate, and the MOJO and positive energy required and have the courage to be ultimately responsible for the consequences of the organization.

Can you describe the relationship that you have had with Microsoft in building your startup?

Upon discovering Corent’s value proposition of disruptive SaaS-enablement of software apps especially .NET Applications, Microsoft immediately understood and acknowledged the value proposition and provided us the Azure resources we needed to test and certify our solution on Azure and connected us with marketing and business development teams to create joint marketing and go-to-market strategies and plans. 

Why would an entrepreneur turn to Microsoft for help in building scale, a team, or using software?

The partner-oriented nature of Microsoft is a key driver for entrepreneurs to turn to Microsoft. After all, Microsoft was a start-up not so long ago and some of the cultural values of a start-up, such as agility, speed, and flexibility, still persist and influence the Microsoft’s philosophy that it is the ecosystem that creates value and no single vendor no matter how large can do it alone.

 

Other Resources

  1. Link to Videos 
    1. The team that makes up the company https://www.corenttech.com/index.php/about-us/management and https://www.corenttech.com/index.php/about-us/advisory-board
    2. Video of founder or company representative speaking about the company https://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21575985
    3. CEO interview: https://www.corenttech.com/images/downloads/CEOCFO-Interview-with-Feyzi-Fatehi-Corent-CEO.pdf