The makers of Simplenote recently introduced their Backend as a Service (BaaS) offering called Simperium that looks to compete in an increasingly crowded space with services like CloudMine, Kinvey, and Parse and to some extent with iCloud for iOS and OS X only apps. So just how crowded is this space? Back in February, Kinvey published their own map of the BaaS ecosystem that highlights different tiers of the ecosystem and various relationships between them.
It will be interesting to see how this ecosystem develops through additional partnerships, acquisitions, rounds of funding, and killer apps that take advantage of a specific service. Another aspect to watch will be the pricing models. Simperium and Kinvey are free either at the moment or while in beta with CloudMine and Parse both taking a 3 tiered usage based pricing model.
BaaS offerings look to lower the barrier of entry for start ups and indie developers looking to build a multi-platform app or app with server side needs. With consumers using more mobile apps and devices these services should deliver an even better and more consistent experience and less frustration keeping their data synced between desktop, web, and mobile apps.