Time Warner Cable’s planned acquisition of NaviSite not only intensifies the M&A activity in the managed hosting arena that was ignited last week by Verizon’s purchase of Terremark, it also shows how the corporate and consumer web services markets are converging.

As Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable’s Chairman and CEO, stated in the company announcement, “Our commercial services business is a key growth driver for the company and one in which we continue to see great opportunity.”

Thirty years ago, I was wrapping up a full-time MBA program at Boston College and was fascinated by an article in Data Communications Magazine about the impending diversiture of AT&T and the prospect of new players entering the enterprise data services market. In particular, the article suggested that the rapidly evolving cable companies of that time could capitalize on this opportunity. I pitched a Boston-based … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Bronto Software 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.

Bronto Software is a SaaS-based email marketing service provider based in Durham, North Carolina, which offers an email marketing platform which includes detailed analytics and a robust feature set to enable online retailers to drive greater transactions online.

Click here to read more about the measurable business benefits which Bronto Software’s customers have achieved which earned the company the latest BoSS Award.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program and … Read More »

Verizon’s acquisition of Terremark, announced last night, clearly indicates that the company is committed to becoming a major player in the rapidly evolving and expanding Cloud Computing marketplace. It will also trigger a new round of similar acquisitions in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) segment of the Cloud Computing arena.

Verizon’s decision to acquire Terremark was a “classic make/buy” choice, according to the company’s executives during their telebriefing this morning. The acquisition accelerates Verizon’s move to the Cloud by leveraging Terremark’s proven capabilities. Terremark offers enterprise-class IaaS solutions which fit well into Verizon’s portfolio and target market. Terremark also has excess hosting capacity in its Miami and Culpepper facilities, and now has the additional financial resources and channels to market to fuel more rapid growth.

Verizon will allow Terremark to retain its brand and independent operations. In fact, Verizon executives suggested that they may move … Read More »

THINKstrategies  announced today that myGengo 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.
 
myGengo offers web-powered human translation services which permit web app and software product localization to expand market opportunities for web based services providers,  media companies, and eCommerce sites seeking to serve broader customer bases in different languages.

Pureprofile is an online marketing services company which has seen an increase in monthly registrations from 8,000 to over 50,000, with 90% of these registrations coming from non-English speaking countries since launch the myGengo service in … Read More »

THINKstrategies unveiled today a new Cloud Computing Showplace containing an online directory of over 1600 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers, and a best practice resource center with the latest information and insight regarding the rapidly evolving Cloud Computing industry.

The Cloud Computing Showplace represents the merging of two previous online directories and best practice resource centers created by THINKstrategies in 2006 — the SaaS and Managed Services Showplaces. The new Cloud Computing Showplace builds on the original mission of the previous Showplace sites and expands their scope.

The purpose of the Cloud Computing Showplace is to help:

IT/business decision-makers find the right Cloud Computing solutions to meet their changing corporate requirements;
Cloud Computing solution providers promote their offerings and succeed in this highly competitive marketplace;
Others better understand the realities of the rapidly evolving Cloud Computing industry.

“Information and Insight Without the Clutter”

Like the previous SaaS and Managed Services Showplace … Read More »

I’ve published two commentaries recently in leading industry publications which describe how the next wave of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions will target ineffecient business processes.

The first was in Sandhill.com discussing how the line of demarcation between software, business and information services is blurring.

The second was in E-Commerce Times examining how Cloud services are going vertical to address industry-specific requirements.

I hope you find these perspectives helpful and worthwhile.

There is no question that cloud computing was the top enterprise tech topic in 2010. Microsoft even succeeded in popularizing the term in its “Into the Cloud” ad campaign at the end of the year. Yet, most of the discussion and debate surrounding cloud computing in 2010 was focused on defining the term and its potential value.

Fortunately this debate didn’t prevent a diverse set of early adopters from capitalizing on the rapidly expanding assortment of cloud computing solutions being offered by a potpourri of emerging and established players. The growing number of cloud users are producing a compelling set of customer success stories and clear ‘use cases’ for employing cloud computing alternatives to legacy systems and on-premise applications.

THINKstrategies has been chronicling many of these success stories in our ongoing Awards programs — the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) and Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) … Read More »

As the year comes to an end, it is an ideal time to assess the implications of the rapid evolution of the Cloud Computing market over the past twelve months and what we can expect in the year to come.

I’ve provided my views about the current state of the Cloud Computing phenomenon and where it is headed in my latest commentary in Ecommerce Times. Click here to read my assessment of 2010 and predictions for 2011.

You might also find my other recent writings regarding the business implications of today’s Cloud Computing trends of interest:

The Five E’s of Effective Cloud Computing Management in 2011  
Cloud Computing or ‘Cloud-Washing’?  
Here Comes a New Generation of Cloud IT Analytics 
Today’s Best CIO: Both Chief Infrastructure and Innovation Officer 
The Changing Role of the Innovative CIO
What Microsoft’s ‘To the Cloud’ Ads Really Promote
CIOs Testify en Masse for SaaS
Why Downtime … Read More »

The year of the Cloud has come to a climax at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco where over 30,000 registrants converged to celebrate the rapidly expanding world of ‘on-demand’ solutions and collaboration tools.

Salesforce.com used the event to beat back the recent efforts of Oracle and Microsoft to gain a share of the Cloud Computing market with a new round of initiatives aimed at building on its phenomenal momentum and success.

The two most significant announcements on Day One were Salesforce.com’s offer of free Chatter accounts across its customer base along with a public version of the social networking service in February, and a new Database.com offering as a spin out of its Force.com Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Day Two began with the news that Salesforce.com plans to acquire the Open Source oriented, Ruby-based application development platform, Heroku, for $212 million in cash. Salesforce.com and BMC Software also announced that … Read More »

Last Friday, December 3, THINKstrategies rolled out a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)/Cloud Computing daily, online newspaper powered by Paper.li. This publication and the online service which creates it illustrate many of the exciting ingredients of the ‘Cloud’, some of the major implications and a few of the unanswered questions.

For the uninitiated, Paper.li is a relatively new, online service created by a privately-held startup, called SmallRivers, incorporated in Switzerland. It compiles links to web articles which have been tweeted or mentioned on Facebook regarding a particular set of user-designated subjects over a period of time (also user-configured) and displays them in a newspaper-style format.

I’ve long believed that Twitter out-performs Google as a search engine and alerting tool for the latest news and views on various topics of interest to me. Every day I’m amazed at how many articles and announcements I find via Twitter, which … Read More »