Ten years ago this month, I launched THINKstrategies as a strategic consulting firm with the singular mission to help IT solution providers, corporate decision-makers, and venture investors capitalize on the transformation of the software and technology industry from a product-centric to a services-driven business model.

At that time, the industry was recovering from the Dot.com bust, and the world was coming to grips with the devastation of 9/11. 

Ten years ago, the hot ideas were application service providers (ASPs) and utility computing. Those ideas have morphed into Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing which have not only transformed the software and technology industry, but have fundamentally changed the way organizations acquire and utilize business applications and computing power. 

I’m proud to have been one of the first to recognize the magnitude of this new market opportunity in 2006, when I published a commentary in BusinessWeek debunking the most common myths associated with SaaS.

THINKstrategies also founded two, successful online directories in 2006, the SaaS Showplace and Managed Services Showplace, to help IT and business decision-makers find the right solutions to meet their corporate needs, to help service providers promote their strategies and solutions, and to showcase the business value of these service offerings.

In 2009, THINKstrategies initiated the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards to recognize SaaS vendors delivering measurable business benefits to their customers. The success of the BoSS Awards led to our launch in 2010 of the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards. THINKstrategies has issued more than 100 awards over the past three years.

In January 2011, THINKstrategies merged the SaaS and Managed Services Showplace sites into the new Cloud Computing Showplace, which now includes over 1850 SaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) companies divided into 90 application, industry and technology categories.  

In 2001, I had less than 200 names on my Outlook contact list. Today, over 14,000 subscribe to THINKstrategies’ monthly Update newsletter, and more than 1900 people follow our alerts via Twitter @thinkstrategies.

This year, THINKstrategies hosted its first conference — the Cloud Channel Summit. Nearly 200 people, 31 speakers, 19 industry partners and 17 sponsors participated in the one-day executive forum, and liked the event so much they’ve asked us to do it again in 2012. We are not only planning to do the Cloud Channel Summit again, we are also working on a second Cloud event focused on another key industry topic next year as well. (Contact me if you’d like to learn more about these events.)

Over the past ten years, I’ve served hundreds of clients; presented in almost as many webinars and live events; and published even more whitepapers, profiles, research reports, articles and blogposts. You can find links to nearly all of them here.

Someone said that you can never fail doing something you love, and surviving ten years has to be a measure of success. While it has come as a result of countless hours of hard work, it has been a labor of love because of the rewarding stories and wonderful people associated with the SaaS, Cloud and Managed Services industries.

Many thanks to all the clients, partners, sponsors and supporters who have helped THINKstrategies grow over the past 10 years.

To all of you, I appreciate your tremendous support and encouragement, and look forward to continuing to promote the growth of the Cloud marketplace and helping THINKstrategies’ clients achieve their business objectives for many more years to come!