Despite the down economy which has decimated the traditional conference business, escalating interest in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing continues to fuel the growth of forums focused on these trends.

THINKstrategies is supporting the following upcoming events,

Xchange Service Provider, March 8-11, Los Angeles, CA.
SaaScon, April 6-7, San Jose, CA.
Under the Radar – ‘Commercializing the Cloud’, April 16, Mountain View, CA. (Friends of THINKstrategies get $100 off their conference registration by clicking here.)
AlwaysOn ‘OnDemand’ Conference, April 19-21, Palo Alto, CA. (Friends of THINKstrategies receive a special 50% discount on a conference registration by clicking here.)
CloudSlam’10, April 19-23.
SaaS University, hosted by SoftLetter, April 20-22, Washington, DC.
Telecomms Cloud Services Summit, April 22-23, London, UK.
All About the Cloud, SIIA Conference, May 10-12, San Francisco, CA. (Use promo code PRMTHINK to get $100 off the SIIA non-member regisration rate. Discount does not apply to current registrants.)
Gluecon, May 26-27, Denver, CO.
2nd Annual … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Cloud9 Analytics 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 program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Cloud9 Analytics is the global leader in on-demand business analytics delivered directly to line-of-business managers. Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite for salesforce.com, enables sales leaders to more effectively manage their opportunities and teams. The result is a dramatic increase in deal conversion rates, higher CRM adoption, and improved forecast accuracy.

Click here to read about Cloud9 Analytics’ … Read More »

My travels this week have taken me from Miami to San Francisco, for Parallels Summit and Pacific Crest Securities’ Emerging Technology Summit to hear and see the latest developments in the ‘clouds’.

In Miami, I witnessed the emergence of a key new player in the rapidly evolving cloud computing industry. Parallels is not a new company, but it has recently realigned its various corporate capabilities into a singular focus on cloud computing enablement.

The company is specifically targeting the vast community of service providers — hosting companies, VARs and telcos — that are supporting the IT needs of small businesses with limited or no IT staff.

In short, Parallels is seeking to help these service providers replicate the success of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the mainstream small business marketplace.

Although AWS has found a very receptive audience among start-ups and enterprise developers, it hasn’t generated much interest with mainstream small businesses which lack … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that TeamSupport.com 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 goal of the  BoSS Awards program is to bring greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

TeamSupport.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Muroc Systems, Inc., a Dallas-based holding company focused on developing productivity enhancing software products delivered via the SaaS model. TeamSupport.com’s integrated SaaS-based customer service, product management, and bug tracking system allows manufacturers, their customers, and key client-focused teams to better communicate so they can reduce the time and cost to perform critical business functions.

Click here to read … Read More »

One of the key battlefields in the cloud computing market for 2010 which I identified earlier this year is IT service management (ITSM). Last month, I discussed BMC’s latest foray into the SaaS-based ITSM world, as well as Service-now.com’s recent win at PepsiAmericas.

Last week, Service-now.com issued a press release summarizing its 2009 accomplishments. The company reported that its recurring revenue increased approximately 136 percent in 2009. Cynics might discount the significance of this growth rate by suggesting it’s easy to report a substantial jump when you’re starting at a low base. However, the company’s CEO, Fred Luddy, revealed to me during a private lunch preceding a company marketing event in Boston that Service-now.com is generating signficant, albeit confidential, revenues and is on a run-rate to double its revenues again in 2010.

The company’s success in the enterprise was personified by the room full … Read More »

In my latest column for E-Commerce Times, I suggest that “once again, Microsoft may be a late entrant in the market with a set of solutions that lag those offered by today’s industry innovators, but it is still in a good position to regain its momentum and become a dominant force in the rapidly evolving cloud computing marketplace.”

Click here to read why.

The resignation of Leo Apotheker as CEO of SAP has sparked significant speculation re: the issues which drove this decision and where SAP will go from here.

The significance of this event was clearly underlined by the role SAP’s Co-Founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Hasso Plattner, played as the primary company spokesperson during a corporate conference call this morning.

During the call, Plattner made an emotional defense of the company’s strategies and tactics in response to rising criticism in the face of SAP’s financial struggles. Plattner used the occasion to dispute claims that SAP isn’t moving fast enough to respond to changes in the market by proclaiming that SAP is well on its way to becoming a “multiple product company”. He gave Apotheker credit for “turning around” BusinessByDesign and said the rollout of the v2.5 of the on-demand solution is “close”.

The reality is that BusinessByDesign has only … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that InteQ InfraDesk 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 program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

InteQ is a leader in On Demand IT Service Management. InteQ’s ITIL SaaS Service Desk application, InfraDesk, is a web-based solution built on InteQ’s process automation expertise and experience. Through its Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model, InfraDesk enables large organizations to eliminate costly maintenance upgrades and lengthy implementation cycles commonly associated with traditional … Read More »

SuccessFactors, Inc. announced today that it is acquiring Inform Business Impact, an Australia-based provider of workforce analytics and planning solutions.

Here are my quick impressions about the business implications of this announcement:

This move confirms my prior predictions that the pace of acquisitions within the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) would accelerate and that major U.S.-based SaaS vendors would put greater emphasis on growing internationally in 2010.
The acquisition of an Australia-based SaaS vendor, on the heals of yesterday’s revelation that Salesforce.com recently acquired a Scotland-based SaaS vendor, illustrates that the on-demand services movement is taking root globally. In fact, approximately 30% of the over 1200 companies listed on THINKstrategies’ SaaS Showplace are headquartered outside the U.S.
This is SuccessFactors’s first acquisition, and it is clear that it plans to do many more because the company also announced today the hiring of Cisco Systems veteran Judy Blegen as its new VP of M&A … Read More »

One of the knocks against Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the broader cloud computing movement is that these web-based, on-demand services can’t be customized to cater to the complex requirements of specific enterprises.

While SaaS solutions have increasingly included a growing array of user configuration capabilities to respond to the individual needs of various organizations, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions have emerged over the past couple of years to permit end-users and third-party developers to build their own apps to meet their unique requirements.

The latest indication of the escalating power of these PaaS tools is today’s announcement unveiling Salesforce.com’s new Force.com Visual Process Manager. This new feature will allow users to design and build business process-oriented applications quickly so they can automate them across corporate departments.

Although the new Force.com Visual Process Manager won’t be generally available until later this year, it is the latest sign that cloud computing alternatives … Read More »