While Salesforce.com was unveiling the first iteration of its new generation of on-demand vertical market software services aimed at the financial services sector this past week, Google was flexing its muscles as a viable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendor with its first round of fee-based, packaged online desktop solutions aimed at enterprise customers.

Google’s new Google Apps includes integrated word processing and spreadsheet applications, as well as BlackBerry support for Gmail for $50/user, a fraction of the price of Microsoft’s Office suite. In order to overcome corporate apprehension about the quality of its new services, Google is offering guaranteed uptime, IT management tools, technical support, and increased e-mail storage. Yet, to show how far Google must go to fulfill its promise as a viable provider of on-demand enterprise apps, Google Gmail users suffered from a series of service failures during the first week … Read More »

In January, THINKstrategies joined the growing legion of multimedia Internet producers with our Spotlight on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) podcast series aimed at educating and evangelizing about the business benefits of today’s new SaaS solutions.

We are now expanding the scope of our podcasts to discuss encompass Managed Services as well. As with our initial podcasts, we will continue to examine ways in which customers and solution providers are leveraging managed services to achieve their business objectives.

Our latest podcast is a discussion of managed service trends, as well as SaaS developments, with Chris Hoffmann and Scott Donohue, two of principals of Triple-Tree, LCC, a leading investment bank which helps emerging and established companies achieve their corporate objectives in the on-demand services industry.

Click here to listen to THINKstrategies’ latest podcast.

I hope you find the podcast series valuable. Please sign up for our new RSS … Read More »

Salesforce.com yesterday unveiled its first concerted effort to focus the power of its AppExchange partner network and Apex programming platform at a specific vertical market opportunity. Salesforce.com’s new initiative targets the financial services sector, in general, and the wealth management segment, in particular.

The new on-demand services come at a time when THINKstrategies’ research indicates that companies of all sizes are not only becoming more receptive to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), but are increasingly looking for industry-specific solutions.

The new wealth management offering combines Salesforce.com’s core customer relationship management (CRM) and salesforce automation (SFA) software solutions with a set of third-party applications and business services focused on financial advisors who want to better serve their customers. It includes a set of standard features and functions upon which business partners and corporate customers can add their own components and capabilities.

The new wealth management service leverages … Read More »

This week, NetSuite, Inc., strengthened its position in the on-demand software market by announcing a new set of eCommerce solutions to manage eBay online sales.

The new alliance capitalizes on one of the largest pools of small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs) in the world. eBay is a channel to market which I’ve been telling many Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies should be a key component of their go-to-market strategies.

NetSuite’s expanded on-demand business management capabilities will enable millions of businesses selling goods and services via eBay to leverage a single, integrated platform to handle their inventory, warehouse management, accounting, sales, marketing and hosting requirements.

NetSuite’s multi-lingual and multi-currency recognition system will also enable eBay businesses to manage their international listings including scheduling, order management, fulfillment and shipping processes.

The turnkey, all-in-one package should appeal to many eBay sellers who are quickly growing from home-based endeavors to … Read More »

On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Verizon Business—a unit of Verizon Communications—announced the expansion of its business continuity services portfolio that illustrates how major telecommunications carriers are broadening their capabilities and reshaping the competitive landscape.

While most people who follow the telecommunications market refer to the ‘triple-play’ being offered by the leading ISPs as a bundle of telephone, internet and TV services, Verizon Business’ latest announcement shows how the carriers are also creating another form of triple-play which includes consulting, hosting and software services.

In the case of Verizon Business’ business continuity services, the first part is a set of consulting services that includes business impact analyses, gap analyses, strategy workshops, asset inventories and vulnerability assessments.

The second component is the company’s hosting portfolio which leverages its global network of data centers and includes a virtual file sharing service—Resilient Network Attached Storage—with centralized file … Read More »

Two announcements last week served as reminders that, despite growing interest in on-demand solutions, professionals services remain an essential part of the technology landscape.

On January 30, Salesforce.com announced a strategic alliance with Deloitte Consulting to extend the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leader’s reach into the enterprise market. Salesforce.com already has a similar agreement in place with Accenture. But, the Deloitte alliance confirms the growing interest in SaaS among large-scale enterprises and the desire of a growing number of established consultancies to join the SaaS movement.

As I’ve stated many times, any suggestion that SaaS will eliminate the role of channel organizations in the software industry is ludicrious. However, there is no question that many value-added resellers (VARs) and consultancies will need to shift their focus from technology integration to process or change management projects. A clear example of this shift, as well as … Read More »

With the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) movement becoming generally accepted among organizations of all sizes, a growing number of SaaS vendors are seeking to differentiate themselves by creating on-demand solutions specifically designed to address the unique requirements of particular industries or vertical markets.

THINKstrategies’ SaaS Showplace includes nearly 600 company listings by industry. Many of these companies are simply targeting specific industries rather than offering industry-specific solutions. However, a growing number are designing their on-demand solutions to cater to the specific needs of targeted industries.

The shift in attention is timely according to THINKstrategies’ latest SaaS survey in conjunction with Cutter Consortium. In the second installment of our three-part series on the findings of this survey we will discuss how a substantial proportion of the survey respondents are either currently using industry-specific SaaS solutions or considering them.

Leading SaaS vendors, such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite, … Read More »

Although any of the following news items could warrant an entire posting to delve into their individual implications, time only permits a quick assessment at this stage. Contact me if you’d like to discuss them in greater depth.

Salesforce.com’s Winter ’07 Extravaganza: Once again Salesforce.com (SFDC) has exceeded expectations. The company had promised to release its new Apex development toolkit at this time, but at its Winter ‘O7 event SFDC added a few more features and new initiatives to extend its leadership in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market.

The Apex now permits customers and developers to more easily and extensively customize the SFDC user interface and reconfigure the on-demand application templates. The new development toolkit also permits extended data model customization and workflow modifications.
AppExchange is being expanded to focus on vertical market applications. Building on its tremendous first-year success focused primarily on horizontal … Read More »

I’m pleased to add THINKstrategies to the burgeoning list of podcast producers.

Our focus initially will be on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketplace, but we hope our podcast series will expand to encompass the entire landscape of rapidly changing IT and business services.

Our goal is to educate and evangelize about the business benefits of today’s exciting new SaaS and other on-demand solutions, such as utility computing and managed services, as well as examine ways in which customers and solution providers are innovatively leveraging more traditional services to achieve their business objectives.

Our first podcast focuses on the challenges surrounding the metering and billing for SaaS solutions, especially in complex enterprise environments. In this podcast we talk with Conor Halpin, the founder and CEO of LeCayla Technologies, a Irish company which has developed unique methods to track software utilization and enable organizations to more … Read More »

Cisco Systems’ announcement that it will acquire IronPort Systems, Inc. of San Bruno, CA, on January 4, 2007, could add a new dimension to the networking leader’s arsenal.

IronPort is more than just a leading provider of messaging security appliances that combat spam and spyware. It continuously updates its appliances via a service delivery capability which gives Cisco a new managed security services capability.

Managed security services (MSS) have grown in popularity over the years as the rate of new security threats has escalated. Historically, organizations have had to dedicate their inhouse staff to the endless task of continuously battling the latest security threats. Now, an increasing proportion of organizations, both corporations and government agencies, are recognizing that it makes more sense to enlist the help of specialized firms with greater security expertise and experience to perform this function. This permits the … Read More »