Billing startup Zuora’s Z-Commerce targets cloud computing

January 19, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Zuora, one of the startups that provides on-demand software to manage companies’ billing and payments, aims to take advantage of growing interest in cloud computing with a new product dubbed Z-Commerce, which will provide Zuora’s services to developers on cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine.

The Redwood City, Calif. startup has already released three products: Z-Billing, which automates the billing process; Z-Payments, which integrates with PayPal to handle the actual payments; and Z-Force (perhaps the only Zuora application whose name isn’t completely self-explanatory), a billing and payment system that integrates with Salesforce.com. What Z-Commerce adds to the mix is as much about audience as it is about functionality — where the other applications targeted a company’s finance department, Z-Commerce is meant for developers to use directly.

The new product includes application programming interfaces (APIs) that let cloud developers access Z-Billing, Z-Payments, and Z-Force; the ability to add one-click order processing to any web site; a full web store; sample code; and more.

Like many other tech commentators, chief executive Tien Tzuo says this is the year cloud computing will really take off. The platforms are here, or will be soon — Amazon, Google, Salesforce’s Force.com, Microsoft’s Windows Azure — but what’s missing is a way for most of the developers to make money. That’s where Zuora’s “business cloud” comes in: Developers can focus on their product while Zuora handles the business infrastructure.

This is a direction that makes sense: As venture capitalist M.R. Rangaswami noted last year, one of the big opportunities for startups lies around services surrounding the big cloud platforms. Interest in billing systems delivered via the software-as-a-service business model seems to be picking up, too. Aria Systems just raised $8 million, and Vindicia is another competitor.

Zuora has raised a total of $21.5 million from backers including Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.

Next Story: iTunes gets the new U2 single “Get On Your Boots” first
Previous Story: Just in time for the Obama inauguration, Ustream’s iPhone app launches

Bookmark and Share

Tags:

Photo of Anthony Ha

About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • IP Applications entire billing solution is exposed via APIs and we have been providing sandboxes to our prospects for many years so they can familiarize themselves with our solution and try the API level integration with their software while they are in Beta.

    Our self-serve sandbox has been a great tool for simple subscription billing scenarios. When a subscription services company has deeper requirements as most seem to (such as more complex billing workflows, A/R dunning processes, automated customer communication needs and channel sales strategies) they need some guidance to think through the possibilities, in which case the self service integration model falls short.

    Zuora's announcement has shown us an opportunity to provide a version of our capabilities in a website accessible developer self service model. Keep an eye on our website over the next month or so and thanks for the food for thought.
  • I have to agree with the comment above that open APIs are great for experimentation and learning. Here is a comment I made a couple of days back on zdnet.

    "Cash is no doubt the new black for cloud apps. However, companies considering the use of a third party billing API must proceed with caution.

    If developers are introducing a new online service, a billing API is a great way to commence monetization. Developers in a green field company have the liberty to experiment and work with various pricing models if they use a billing API. However this does not come for free since they have to devote time to learning a non-standard third party API, and then design and write software to the API.

    For an established company, with well defined business models, an API to experiment with, is secondary and of low importance. Ability to quickly integrate existing assets and streamlining the billing process is of higher importance. Like in the case of green field developers, use of such an API does not come for free. Companies have to dedicate time and effort to learning a non-standard third party API which may be obsolete soon.

    Lastly using a so called open API is no different from using Amazon's or Salesforce API. The possibility of a lock-in is not very distant. "

    The following is a comment by a member of Google's cloud group. "... , he mentioned an interesting tidbit that I thought members of this forum may have insight into.

    The primary concern or frustration he(customer) had about todays cloud offerings/ providers is that they all require specific APIs of some sort. I don't, and can't really, go into depth of the differences in these "APIs", but, his concern was that their application was written for EC2 and if they wanted to move to another cloud provider it would
    require a re-write or port. "

    At eVapt, the flexibility of our architecture absolves the customer of custom code in their application.
  • taptamus
    We are releasing Billing on Salesforce Apex. If you are interested, please send email to info@chikpea.com.