Salesforce.com unveiled a series of important enhancements to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) service-desk management capabilities this week aimed at helping businesses more effectively track and respond to the escalating volume of data feeds from Facebook and Twitter.

The company’s Service Cloud 3.0 announcement coincided with its CloudForce 2011 event at the Javits Center in NYC, in the backyard of ‘Corporate America’, the financial services sector and the traditional media world to maximize its attention.

The new round of enhancements were primarily focused on enabling users of Salesforce.com’s service-desk management platform to better monitor Facebook and Twitter feeds, and track their response to comments, complaints and other service requests via these increasingly important social networks.

Salesforce.com made sure to brand each feature as a separate offer to ensure it gained as much attention as possible, including Salesforce.com for Facebook and Salesforce.com for Twitter.

The new monitoring capabilities are actually enabled … Read More »

The extraordinary success of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions has prompted nearly every major hardware and software vendor to offer their own IaaS, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions as well. This has put tremendous pressure on traditional hosting companies, communications service providers (CSPs), and Value-Added Resellers (VARs) to respond with their own offerings in this increasingly competitive marketplace.

This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a full-day analyst briefing and attend the kickoff session of Parallels’ 2011 Partner Summit. [Disclosure: Parallels paid my travel expenses to attend the event.] This year’s Summit built on the momentum of last year’s conference by unveiling numerous enhancements to its portfolio of Cloud enablement solutions, including:

Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure
Hosted PBX
Microsoft System Center Hyper-V Cloud
Microsoft Office 365 Syndication

Parallels also promised to make an increased investment in its Application Packaging Standardization (APS) Program to permit greater portability of Cloud services.

What I especially liked about this year’s … Read More »

Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m neglecting this blog because I’ve been invited to publish my perspectives on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing movement in so many other online venues. Anyone who isn’t following my writings in these additional outlets may have missed my most recent views since the start of 2011. So, here’s a quick list for your reading pleasure,

E-Commerce Times: Pushing the Cloud From Madison Avenue to Main Street, 02/11/11

Datamation:Capitalizing on Cloud Computing: Not If, But When, 02/08/11 

E-Commerce Times: Clouds Go Vertical, 01/14/11 

You can also click here to find my most recent blogposts regarding the latest M&A activity, conference dynamics and end-user focus in the SaaS and Cloud arena on TechWeb’s Internet Evolution microsite.

THINKstrategies  announced today that myGengo 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 is an ongoing program of THINKstrategies’ new Cloud Computing Showplace which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.
 
myGengo offers web-powered human translation services which permit web app and software product localization to expand market opportunities for web based services providers,  media companies, and eCommerce sites seeking to serve broader customer bases in different languages.

Pureprofile is an online marketing services company which has seen an increase in monthly registrations from 8,000 to over 50,000, with 90% of these registrations coming from non-English speaking countries since launch the myGengo service in … Read More »

I’ve published two commentaries recently in leading industry publications which describe how the next wave of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions will target ineffecient business processes.

The first was in Sandhill.com discussing how the line of demarcation between software, business and information services is blurring.

The second was in E-Commerce Times examining how Cloud services are going vertical to address industry-specific requirements.

I hope you find these perspectives helpful and worthwhile.

The year of the Cloud has come to a climax at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco where over 30,000 registrants converged to celebrate the rapidly expanding world of ‘on-demand’ solutions and collaboration tools.

Salesforce.com used the event to beat back the recent efforts of Oracle and Microsoft to gain a share of the Cloud Computing market with a new round of initiatives aimed at building on its phenomenal momentum and success.

The two most significant announcements on Day One were Salesforce.com’s offer of free Chatter accounts across its customer base along with a public version of the social networking service in February, and a new Database.com offering as a spin out of its Force.com Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Day Two began with the news that Salesforce.com plans to acquire the Open Source oriented, Ruby-based application development platform, Heroku, for $212 million in cash. Salesforce.com and BMC Software also announced that … Read More »

Organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry are putting aside their legacy, on-premise applications in favor of a new generation of Web-based, on-demand, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing alternatives.
 
This escalating trend is attracting a new breed of software providers and forcing established independent software vendors (ISVs), as well as in-house software developers, to re-think how they design, develop and deliver business applications.
 
THINKstrategies has published a whitepaper, on behalf of SoftServe, which examines how Cloud-based, SaaS applications differ from traditional on-premise software products, and how specialized software development firms can help ISVs and in-house developers meet users’ changing expectations and achieve their business objectives.
 
Click here to obtain a copy of THINKstrategies’ whitepaper. I hope you find it helpful.

Despite the growing examples of organizations gaining tangible and measurable business benefits from Cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions which THINKstrategies profiled in its recent report entitled, “Measuring the Business Benefits of Today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Solutions”, many corporate decision-makers remain apprehensive about adopting these Cloud-based services because of data privacy and security concerns.

Companies outside the U.S. are particularly concerned about using services delivered by U.S.-based providers because of the ominous language contained in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, commonly referred to as the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

This regulation appears to permit U.S. law enforcement agencies to unilaterally access private customer records stored on corporate servers worldwide if they are suspected of holding data which could pertain to terrorist threats or other criminal activity. These fears have made organizations especially hesitant to consider SaaS-based … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) OnDemand solution 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 is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is an intuitive, turnkey business intelligence solution that allows business people with no prior experience to explore, report and share information inside or outside the company.  Because it’s on demand, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand can be acquired and setup in minutes, without a long technology project.  It’s available standalone or can integrate with existing on-premise or on-demand investments, delivering improved productivity and greater insight for more informed decision-making.

Click here … Read More »

At its core, the fundamental value proposition of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is risk management because it promises to enable companies to better manage resources, focus on core capabilities and minimize the cost of extensive IT infrastructures.

But anecdotal evidence suggests that many potential buyers believe SaaS entails other forms of risk – and that this belief often stalls purchase decisions, especially among C-suite executives.

Grant Thornton is eager to test, measure, clarify and perhaps erase perceptions that challenge greater business adoption of SaaS solutions by conducting an industry survey to see how these risks are impacting SaaS success.

THINKstrategies is pleased to be supporting Grant Thornton’s SaaS Business Sector Risk Management Survey, and would like to encourage SaaS, other independent software vendors (ISVs) and as well as those who are involved with the delivery of SaaS solutions to participate in this research project.

Grant Thornton’s goal … Read More »