THINKstrategies today that it has entered into a partnership with RepFolio to help Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing providers expand their sales channels so they can better position themselves in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.

RepFolio has launched a web-based platform which can transform the way B2B companies build and manage external sales forces with minimal upfront investment and zero overhead. RepFolio’s platform provides powerful online tools for both sales reps and businesses:

Sales reps can browse and apply to businesses whose solutions fit their skills, and build and manage an “ecosystem” of services that can be cross-marketed to target customers. They can also generate detailed sales and activity reports, and track their commissions through the RepFolio platform.
Businesses can receive applications and review profiles of prospective sales reps, track performance by service, on-board new customers, and issue and monitor commission payments via the … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that WebEquity Solutions LLC (“WebEquity”) 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 has been created by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

WebEquity offers on-demand lending software which helps over 500 financial institutions and 10,000 lending professionals automate and streamline their lending processes and reduce their operational costs, while making more consistent and profitable credit decisions. A unique benefit WebEquity offers lenders is a single system that works for commercial real estate, construction, commercial industrial, small business, agriculture and consumer loans. The … Read More »

Last week’s travels took me from Boston to Washington, DC, for NetworkWorld’s latest stop of the IT Roadmap and then on to San Jose, CA , for the SIIA’s OnDemand conference.

In DC, I had the privilege of presenting in the Convention Center’s main ballroom THINKstrategies’ perspectives regarding cloud computing, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services.

A year ago, less than 50 people attended my breakout session on this topic as these new services were just beginning to hit the radar-screens of government agencies as they anticipated the arrival of the newly elected Obama administration.

Last week, the number of attendees in my session was over twice the previous year’s total, the latest milestone in a steady rise which I’ve seen throughout 2009 of both public sector and commercial interest in on-demand alternatives to on-premise systems and software.

In the case of these government-oriented attendees, … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Sabrix, Inc. 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 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Sabrix is a leading provider of transaction tax management software and services for companies of all sizes. Sabrix Managed Tax Service (MTS) is an outsourced sales and use tax compliance service that allows companies to entrust their compliance obligation to Sabrix tax experts. Sabrix MTS combines the services of professional tax experts with best practice methodologies … Read More »

One of my favorite events of the year used to be Gartner’s Symposium in Orlando because of the locale and multi-day immersion in IT prognostications.

While I often disagreed with the POV of Gartner’s analysts, I found it useful to hear what they had to say because of their influence over enterprise IT and business decision-makers.

The past few years, I intentionally stayed away from the event because Gartner had fallen so behind the rapidly changing marketplace when it comes to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing. Instead, I’ve enjoyed referring to Gartner as a ‘lagging indicator’ of market trends.

However, I was very pleased to read the news today that Gartner has put cloud computing at the top of its list of top strategic technologies for 2010.

Although I could discard this announcement as another example of Gartner’s slow recognition of key market trends, I … Read More »

Nearly thirty companies have joined forces to form a new European Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing services business community, called EuroCloud.

The purpose of this new group is to bring together Euro-based SaaS and cloud computing vendors, enablers, integrators and industry experts to share best practices and promote new business opportunities across the continent.

The European Launch Promoters (ELP) are: Amazon Web Services, Cloudberry Associates, Cloudmore, Compubase, Dassault Systèmes, E-Kenz, Emailvision, Esker, Huddle, INES, ipsCA, McAfee, Microsoft Corporation, Mimecast, MrTed, NTRglobal, Odyssee Mobile, Oodrive, OpSource, Panda Security, Procullux Ventures, Qualys, RunMyProcess, Saas-it Consult, salesforce.com, Servoy, STS Group, SuccessFactors and Twinfield.

The group also includes the French ASP Forum, with 70 members, which has renamed itself EuroCloud France. EuroCloud also has local communities in the UK, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Spain. 

The group is actively recruiting additional members in hopes of growing to twenty (20) EuroCloud regional organizations … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Host 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 initiated by THINKstrategies to bring 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.

Host Analytics is a leading provider of on-demand corporate performance management  (CPM) solutions that help finance and departmental executives improve their budgeting, forecasting, financial consolidations, dashboarding, scorecarding, reporting and analysis.

Click here to read more about Host Analytics’ award winnning SaaS solutions.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards and to apply for an award.

We’ve fallen into a lengthy pattern of rainy weather in the Boston area. Even though it’s starting to feel like we’re living in Seattle rather than Beantown, I don’t mind wet Sunday’s because they allow me to catch up on work and reading, and enjoy a guilt-free afternoon staying indoors watching football (the Red Sox season being over).

If you’re looking for some interesting reading that you might have missed during the past week, here are a few good articles:

The French Get Lost in the Clouds Over a New Term in the Internet Age. This 10/14/09 Wall Street Journal article discusses the humorous way in which the French government is attempting to rename “cloud computing” because of its double-entendre meanings in the French language. It not only highlights the language barriers to promoting an idea internationally, it also speaks to the fundamental ambiguities of … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Boomi 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 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Boomi provides on-demand integration technology which connects providers and consumers of SaaS and on-premise applications via a pure SaaS integration platform-as-a-service (PaaS) without software or appliances.

Click here to read more about Boomi’s award-winning SaaS capabilities.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards program and to apply for an award.

A series of service outages over the past few days has brought into focus all the worst fears about the ‘cloud’ computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) movement. These incidents have also demonstrated how data center experience doesn’t necessarily translate into cloud computing excellence.

The most damaging outage affected T-Mobile users who lost their contact information in a SideKick server snafu by a Microsoft subsidiary, amazingly called “Danger”.

A severe data center outage grounded Air New Zealand last week. This time, IBM proved to be the culprit responsible for mishandling one of the airline carrier’s mainframe systems as part of a traditional-style outsourcing arrangement.

The cloud computing world wasn’t spared when one of the most promising SaaS vendors also had a system failure last week. Unlike the IBM and Microsoft outages, Workday was able to fully restore its customers’ records and salvage its customers’ satisfaction for important two reasons:

It had the … Read More »