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 »