HP’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker unveiled the company’s latest corporate strategy yesterday with plenty of fanfare, but little flourish.

The theme of his talk and HP’s new mantra is providing “connectivity” to the Cloud to move “Everyone On”.

While the picture he painted of this new world order and HP’s strategic response covered all the bases, there are still plenty of pieces which must come together in order to make it a reality.

Apotheker’s ‘vision’ was certainly well-conceived and his presentation was well-scripted. No one can argue with his view that,

“We see clearly a world in which the impact of cloud and connectivity is changing not only the user experience, but how individuals, small businesses and enterprises will consume, deploy and leverage information technology.”

I would also agree that “HP is well positioned to be the trusted leader in addressing this opportunity.”  But, it faces plenty of problems capitalizing on this opportunity.

Apotheker’s … Read More »

In case you missed my recent columns and commentaries in other places, here’s a quick list of links for your reading pleasure and consideration:

E-Commerce Times: Amazon Web Services and the ASP Model Redux

Datamation: Who Will Move You to the Cloud? 

You can also click here to find my recent blogposts on TechWeb’s Internet Evolution microsite which include:

Why Cloud Services Are Still Enterprise-Sized
10 Es of Successful Cloud Services
End-User Focus Is Key to Success in the Cloud
Bridging the Great Divide in Cloud Computing
Cloud Control Will Be an IT Priority in 2011 

When I founded THINKstrategies back in 2001, I chose the name because I wanted to help clients re-think how they viewed their business problems regardless of industry. One of the common challenges my ‘vendor’ clients face is how to explain the value of their business solutions in a succinct, compelling and differentiated fashion so it captures the attention of potential customers and the imagination of the broader marketplace. This typically translates into the daunting task of formulating an ‘elevator pitch’.

My most recent involvement in this exercise was last week when I helped my latest client put their pitch together as a part of a half-day strategy session. I refer to these meetings as “catalyst” sessions because they help clients generate new ways of thinking about their market opportunities, competitive challenges, solution pricing/packaging, or go-to-market strategies and tactics. In this case, our discussion generated a new way to think about … Read More »

Salesforce.com unveiled a series of important enhancements to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) service-desk management capabilities this week aimed at helping businesses more effectively track and respond to the escalating volume of data feeds from Facebook and Twitter.

The company’s Service Cloud 3.0 announcement coincided with its CloudForce 2011 event at the Javits Center in NYC, in the backyard of ‘Corporate America’, the financial services sector and the traditional media world to maximize its attention.

The new round of enhancements were primarily focused on enabling users of Salesforce.com’s service-desk management platform to better monitor Facebook and Twitter feeds, and track their response to comments, complaints and other service requests via these increasingly important social networks.

Salesforce.com made sure to brand each feature as a separate offer to ensure it gained as much attention as possible, including Salesforce.com for Facebook and Salesforce.com for Twitter.

The new monitoring capabilities are actually enabled … Read More »

The extraordinary success of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions has prompted nearly every major hardware and software vendor to offer their own IaaS, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions as well. This has put tremendous pressure on traditional hosting companies, communications service providers (CSPs), and Value-Added Resellers (VARs) to respond with their own offerings in this increasingly competitive marketplace.

This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a full-day analyst briefing and attend the kickoff session of Parallels’ 2011 Partner Summit. [Disclosure: Parallels paid my travel expenses to attend the event.] This year’s Summit built on the momentum of last year’s conference by unveiling numerous enhancements to its portfolio of Cloud enablement solutions, including:

Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure
Hosted PBX
Microsoft System Center Hyper-V Cloud
Microsoft Office 365 Syndication

Parallels also promised to make an increased investment in its Application Packaging Standardization (APS) Program to permit greater portability of Cloud services.

What I especially liked about this year’s … Read More »

Social networking is one of the big three themes of 2011, along with Cloud Computing and Mobility.

Salesforce.com has been pushing its Chatter social networking platform for the corporate class with the new public service, Chatter.com, promoted with two ads during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Today, Constant Contact made a move to keep pace with the social networking expectations of its customers by acquiring Bantam Live, a contact management and social CRM provider for $15 million. This acquisition follows Constant Contact’s purchase of NutshellMail last May which enabled the email marketing company to link its messages to Twitter and Facebook.

The Bantam Live acquisitoin goes beyond simply giving Constant Contact subscribers a Facebook-like user interface and experience. It also includes contact/CRM, task management, calendaring, deal tracking, and project management, among other capabilities.

By adding these functionalities onto its email marketing platform, Constant Contact is pushing to dramatically expand its role within its customer … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Pardot has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards is an ongoing program of THINKstrategies’ new Cloud Computing Showplace which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Pardot is a provider of on-demand interactive marketing automation solutions which offer a rich feature set, ease of use, and flexibility to permit greater marketing effectiveness and encourage higher sales productivity.

Click here to read the announcement about Pardot’s award-winning business benefits.

Click here to read more about THINKstrategies’ BoSS Award program or to apply for an Award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched … Read More »

Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m neglecting this blog because I’ve been invited to publish my perspectives on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing movement in so many other online venues. Anyone who isn’t following my writings in these additional outlets may have missed my most recent views since the start of 2011. So, here’s a quick list for your reading pleasure,

E-Commerce Times: Pushing the Cloud From Madison Avenue to Main Street, 02/11/11

Datamation:Capitalizing on Cloud Computing: Not If, But When, 02/08/11 

E-Commerce Times: Clouds Go Vertical, 01/14/11 

You can also click here to find my most recent blogposts regarding the latest M&A activity, conference dynamics and end-user focus in the SaaS and Cloud arena on TechWeb’s Internet Evolution microsite.

THINKstrategies announced today that FastPassCorp has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards is an ongoing program of THINKstrategies’ new Cloud Computing Showplace which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

FastPassCorp is a global provider of self-service, password reset solutions for Active Directory and other applications headquartered in Denmark. Its FastPass Password Manager permits a user to click on an “I forgot my password” button to reset their password and synchronize different logins. This tool can reduce support requests and costs.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which earned FastPassCorp the latest BoSS Award.

For more information about the rules for … Read More »

A series of announcements over the past week clearly indicates that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) financial management and enterprise resource management (ERP) solutions are taking hold among organizations of all sizes worldwide.

The first was Intacct’s announcement that it had grown its customer subscription base 68% in 2010 and added more than 800 new client organizations. The company also reported 94.2% of clients surveyed indicated they would recommend Intacct to their colleagues, which is a perfect example of the customer-driven referral engine which is powering the overall growth of SaaS solutions. Intacct also said that 11 of the top 100 largest CPA firms in North America have joined the Intacct Accountants Program from CPA2Biz, showing that mainstream professional service firms are also adopting SaaS and recommending their clients take advantage of these solutions as well.

Plex Systems,  a provider of SaaS-based manufacturing ERP software, … Read More »