Salesforce.com announced its intention to acquire Jigsaw today and is once again redefining the role of the software vendor and nature of software applications.

Jigsaw, a Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) winner, provides lead generation services via the aggregation of third-party data service feeds combined with a cloud–based, ‘crowd-sourcing’ model.

Jigsaw taps lead gen data from D&B, Hoover’s, LexisNexis and other data sources, and makes it available to sales organizations who in turn clean the data and share their own contact lists in hopes that they will build greater and better quality contacts as a result of participating in Jigsaw’s user community.

Jigsaw’s tight API integration with Salesforce.com makes it relatively easy for users to import third-party contact information into their Salesforce.com’s CRM system. The company’s CEO also told me that its API will be extended to connect to other CRM solutions, including Siebel and Microsoft … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Vivantio 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 to bring attention to SaaS 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.

Vivantio provides a suite of easy-to-deploy SaaS-based service management tools which enable customer service and support teams to increase productivity and save money. The flexibility and scalability of Vivantio’s solutions are reflected in its diverse customer base which includes public sector organizations, corporate customers and small service companies.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits Vivantio’s customers have gained from its SaaS solutions that earned … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced yesterday that Caspio, Inc. has been named the first winner of the new Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s cloud computing solutions.

The CCBV Awards program was announced in January 2010 to recognize Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers delivering tangible business benefits to specific user organizations. These benefits include lower costs, faster deployment times, greater profitability, etc.

The Award program builds on the success of THINKstrategies’ Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program which was initiated in 2009.

Caspio provides an on-demand, do-it-yourself, web application creation PaaS which replaces coding with intuitive point-and-click wizards, enabling users to rapidly produce web database components for capturing, publishing, and managing data online. Caspio’s customers range from one-person entrepreneurs to Fortune-500 corporations, digital media giants, government agencies, and educational institutions.

Click … Read More »

I’ve been predicting for over a year, that despite the rapid growth of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market many aspiring best-of-breed vendors will not survive an industry shakeout or the short attention spans of their venture funding sources.

The latest case in point is Helpstream which discontinued operations this past month. I first reported on the company in 2008 when it originally launched as Pathworks Software and caught my attention because of the way it promised to leverage the Open Source pricing model and community building orientation.

In essence, Helpstream was one of the first SaaS companies in the helpdesk market to recognize the powerful potential of a social networking capability embedded into an enterprise app.

Since then, saleforce.com has picked up the baton and is very quickly demonstrating the tangible benefits which can be derived from merging a Facebook-like capability into its CRM/SFA solution with … Read More »

This week’s NCAA college basketball championship between Duke and Butler University offered plenty of life lessons for everyone, including the software and technology industry.

I took particular interest in the game because my oldest son is a sophomore at Butler which became the center of attention because of the ‘feel-good’ story surrounding the school. For anyone who isn’t aware of the dynamics that made the Duke-Butler championship special and didn’t see the game, it was a classic Cinderella and ‘David and Goliath’ story wrapped into one.

Duke is a pre-eminent basketball power with a long history of success on the national stage that has enabled the school to spend lavishly to attract elite ballplayers for decades. Butler is a respectable but little known ‘mid-major’ program which most people viewed as an unlikely challenger because the college is a fraction of the size of the top basketball institutions, spends less than 1/15 as much on its … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that LogicMonitor 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 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater 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.
 
LogicMonitor provides automated monitoring, trending, and alerting for the entire data center infrastructure from a single, affordable SaaS-based solution. LogicMonitor’s Active Discovery engine performs ongoing discovery of new devices and device changes, eliminating the need for continuous monitoring configuration.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which earned LogicMonitor the latest BoSS Award.

Click here to read more about … Read More »

Among the strategic partnerships which THINKstrategies established in 2009, was our decision to team with Renovatix Solutions to add a new online marketplace capability to the SaaS Showplace.

Adding an online marketplace to the Showplace was a natural extension to the fundamental mission of the site of helping IT/business decision-makers identify SaaS solutions to meet their corporate objectives, and giving SaaS vendors a forum to promote their capabilities.

My decision to team with Renovatix Solutions is part of my larger vision that the go-to-market strategies of SaaS companies and developers are also evolving.

While many SaaS companies have built their initial success on a variety of direct sales techniques and affiliate marketing tactics, I believe they are now poised to start leveraging an emerging channel of enterprise companies who want to use branded online marketplaces to enhance their customer relationships and providing new levels … Read More »

Earlier this month, THINKstrategies and Datamation teamed up to conduct a quick survey to get a reality check regarding current Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption, satisfaction and expectations.

The results are in. Click here to read about our findings.

As you’ll see, our quick survey has found that SaaS acceptance, deployment and utilization are rising. It also confirmed that most SaaS users are satisfied with the benefits of these solutions.

However, the handful who are not pleased with their SaaS experiences raise important issues which every IT and business decision-maker needs to keep in mind.

Fortunately, the overall SaaS industry is doing a good job satisfying the expectations and needs of customers. As a result, our survey suggests continued growth for the SaaS market, and broader cloud computing services industry.

THINKstrategies announced today that Jigsaw 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 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater 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.
 
Jigsaw is a leading provider of business information and data services that leverages user-generated content contributed by a global business-to-business community of over one million members to give users access to contact information for 21 million business people and profiles of 3 million companies. Jigsaw provides data-as-a-service (DaaS) through a variety of low-cost and easy to … Read More »

THINKstrategies announced today that Deposco, 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 to bring attention to SaaS 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.

Deposco offers next-generation supply chain solutions to manufacturers, distributors, retailers and 3PL’s. Past supply chain solutions were limiting due to their expense, closed architecture, lack of mobility, and inability to share information with trading partners. Deposco’s SaaS delivery model, rapid implementation and easy configuration of customer specific business processes drive quick return-on-investment (ROI) with minimal up-front investment.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which Deposco’s customers have gained from the company’s … Read More »