I recently published a column in E-Commerce Times discussing the growing interest and adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools among IT professionals seeking to better manage their increasingly complex IT environments.

Two announcements during the past week illustrate the growing convergence of the SaaS and managed services industries as well, a trend which I’ve been talking about for the past two years.

The first of these announcements came from ManageEngine which unveiled a free beta of its new SaaS-based network, systems and security management software capabilities.

ManageEngine is a quiet giant in the IT management industry with over 37,000 companies utilizing its traditional software solutions. It is also a subsidiary of India-based, AdventNet, Inc., which also owns Zoho, the increasingly popular SaaS office productivity solution provider.

While ManageEngine’s new OpManager On-Demand offerings do not currently include the Zoho tools, they capitalize on the same service delivery infrastructure and SaaS … Read More »