OpSourceac, the SaaS delivery experts, today announced the opening of its European headquarters, located at Albany House, Market Street, Maidenhead, Berks SL6 8BE, U.K. OpSource is expanding operations into Europe to meet rising demand from local software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Web 2.0 companies for Web application delivery services. In addition, OpSource will be providing European application delivery services for its U.S.-based customers from its U.K. operations center.

Recent IDC studies on the ERP and CRM markets in western Europe forecast high double-digit growth rates for on-demand applications. aAdoption of the on-demand model in Europe has been a few years behind the U.S. despite high broadband penetration in Europe,a said Bo Lykkegaard, program manager, European enterprise applications, IDC. aThe current gap between on-demand adoption in the U.S. and western Europe is expected to narrow during the 2007-2011 period implying very high European growth rates. In the CRM market, IDC expects on-demand CRM applications to make up almost half of the net market growth of the entire CRM market in Europe during the next five years.aA More here

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To be able to give an answer to this question requires a better understanding of what the FOSS reality is about. A must read is the study on the aEconomic impact of F(L)OSS: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf

This study provides a.o. the following observations:

Almost two-thirds of FOSS software is still written by individuals; firms contribute 15% and other institutions another 20%;
FOSS market shares have seen considerable growth in the past five years;
FOSS market penetration is high. Apart from the Public sector in the private sector, FOSS adoption is driven by medium- and large-sized firms;
The US has the edge in terms of large FOSS related businesses;
Europe has a greater individual contribution which has led to an increasing number of successful European FOSS-SMEs;
Annualized and adjusted for growth at least 800 million Euros (yearly) in voluntary contribution from programmers is made.

So what does this tell us? Governments, Medium and Large sized companies are benefiting from FOSS-work, which represents a market value of about Euro 12 billion. Secondly, that the majority of FOSS-work is done by individuals whose efforts represent an annual value of 800 million Euros.

So where is the money going, and who benefits the most? I feel these questions need to be answered, while keeping in mind that the FOSS community has come this far because it is driven by enthusiasm and community spirit. Nevertheless the answer is confronting. Governments, Medium and large-size companies seem to benefit the most (12 billion). Do they hire the FOSS-individual from around the corner, or do they go for the big names delivering FOSS + services? In this case, raising the question is giving the answer.

With the growth of SaaS and the ASP/GPL3 loophole this situation will most certainly persist, unless a business model can be created whereby the FOSS-individuals and/or their FOSS community can start benefiting from the above. Our internal discussion pivoted around the question if the GravityZoo concept (as SaaS-enabler) is indeed providing such a viable FOSSaaS business model.

Let me start by stating what we know we can provide to the (FOSSaaS) developer:

A networked computing platform to convert their existing software into a FOSSaaS proposition or built FOSSaaS from scratch;

A marketplace/distribution channel to deliver their FOSS to their users as a Service in a one to many environment;

A (not-mandatory) model to make money by implementing advertising-objects in his/her FOSSaaS proposition;

So does the above give an answer to the question I raised in the beginning? Yes, I do believe that GravityZoo has the capabilities to provide the FOSS community with a viable SaaS business model. But simultaneously I must admit that while writing this article I realized that we do not have all the answers and most certainly that we do not know all the questions. We are scouting new territory!

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ThinkFreeas Portable Edition is a clone of MS Office 2003 and has the same features of their online component (www.thinkfree.com), but you guessed itait works offline making it great for using it on a long flight or from your friendas or family members computer when you away from your home or office. You can store your docs to the U3 drive or your hard drive, plus you can edit MS Office docs in ThinkFree as well (and visa versa). For more features click here

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Via Techworld: Business Objects is to offer its entire range of products via on-demand subscriptions, according to a company executive. In the coming months, the maker of business intelligence software plans to put its complete product line online, including its EPM (enterprise performance management) offering, said senior vice president and Chief Marketing Officer Marge Breya. The company will continue selling its traditionally licensed products as well. SaaS (software as a service) products are becoming increasingly popular among customers who seek quick and easy deployments, cost savings and greater flexibility to serve an increasingly mobile workforce, according to Breya. At a user event in Berlin, Business Objects announced the beta test of its new Information OnDemand offering, which makes external market information available to users of the company's business analytics software More here

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Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a global supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today announced that it has Software as a Service (SaaS)-enabled its ProgressA(R) ApamaA(R) Algorithmic Trading Platform. Apama maximises the use of SaaS through: (1) its rich, graphical, web-based dashboards; (2) a new API that allows trading scenarios to be initiated and monitored from remote locations; and (3) its native ability to rapidly create client-specific white box trading algorithms. More here

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SuccessFactors, the global leader in on-demand performance and talent management solutions, today announced that Glynn Capital Management has rolled out SuccessFactors Performance and Talent Management Suite to all 10 of its company employees.

While most SaaS vendors are solely focused on large deployments to massive enterprises, the Glynn Capital announcement demonstrates the value that SuccessFactorsa on-demand software delivers to companies of all sizes across dozens of industries and underscores SuccessFactorsa commitment to offering small businesses the same valuable software support and enterprise level functionality as large enterprises such as SuccessFactors customers Wachovia, Kimberly-Clark and MasterCard Worldwide. The announcement comes on the heels of SuccessFactorsa April 18th announcement of one of the largest enterprise SaaS deployments ever made public a an 85,000-seat deployment at Wachovia, the fourth-largest bank holding company in the U.S. More here

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A discussion with Chris Smith, Vice President of Marketing with Alert Logic. Chris and Peter Schooff, Security Editor,ebizQ.net discuss the current state of security, Alert Logicas Security as a Service -- how it works, who it works best for, and how it would work against the Storm Worm -- and we also delve into compliance, and how Alert Logic is equipped to deal with the newest attack vectors expected with Web 2.0. More here

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Brenda Michelson:-
Having left my corporate budget responsibilities behind, I hadn't really thought of this.A Today's WSJ has an article on SaaS adoption.A One of the driving factors in large organizations is accounting.A Not, providing accounting services, but how software expense is accounted for.. More here

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Most of the start-up application vendors are selecting SaaS [Software as a Service] as their primary model, and increasingly as their sole model for delivering applicaA-tions.a

At least thatas what Dave Mitchell, director of software-as-a-service strategy for IBM, told me for a recent article I published in Database Trends & Applications. (The article is summarized here at my DBTA aEye on the Enterprisea blog.)

SaaS rules. A related survey, which I conducted for Unisphere Research in conjunction with the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), confirms that interest in the SaaS approach is running high among corporate end-users. The survey of 576 companies found that a sizable segment of enterprises are takA-ing advantage of, or are aware of, SaaS or on-demand software. About two out of five respondents, 39 percent, were already using SaaS applications, and another nine percent were considering adoption of SaaS-based solutions withA-in a yearas time. Those that already run on-demand or SaaS solutions reported that they were seeing benefits in terms of cost savings and skills availability. More from FastForward

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BT Business, in partnership with Microsoft, is bringing together specialist software developers and small business customers with the launch of the BT Applications Marketplace. The Marketplace is designed for companies that have developed business-focused hosted applications that are stable, supported and ready for market. It enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to publish and promote their software to small businesses via the dedicated Applications Marketplace web site, a part of BT Tradespace. Visit the tradespace here

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Read MAHDI ABDULRAZAK interview on porting Open Office to GravityZoo:

FOSSaaS (Free Open Source Software as a Service) OpenOffice.org will not only show that using Software as a Service can be desktop alike experience, it will also provide an entire suite of productivity tools. If OpenOffice.org can become a FOSSaaS showcase triggering the FOSS community to start moving towards a SaaS proposition, then Google Apps should start to worry.

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The demand for software as a service continues to increase as small and large businesses alike are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the lengthy times and costs associated with deploying traditional software.

However, the only way for SaaS providers to succeed as a viable alternative to traditional desktop applications is to ensure they deliver reliable performance and scale of their services.

Content delivery network operator Akamai Technologies (akamai.com) offers a Web application acceleration solution for secure and reliable application acceleration that enables SaaS providers to deliver services to any enterprise regardless of their size and geographic distribution. The solution also enables enterprises to reduce expensive operating costs related to IT build-out and performance-related service complaints.
More here

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Modelled in part on successful SaaS (software as a service) ventures like Salesforce.com, A1S will mark a major change to SAP's business model of selling software that customers run in-house, paying an initial licence fee and ongoing maintenance.

Also like Salesforce.com, A1S will allow developers to build applications that bring additional functionality to the platform. The package will present around 2500 interfaces, implemented using a service oriented architecture (SOA). More here

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New data out of Saugatuck Research finds Software as a Service (SaaS) is gaining traction in today's enterprises. As reported in Network World, more than a quarter of companies are using at least one SaaS application, up from 11% at the beginning of 2006, the consultancy reports. Saugatuck goes on to predict that SaaS adoption will grow to 47% by the end of this year, and by 2010 it will reach at least 65% worldwide.

If Saugatuck is right, that means that SaaS adoption will double over the next few months, from 25% to 47%. This truly makes 2007 the year of SaaS.

The consultancy goes on to observe that integration with in-house software will likely require SOA, the report states. aSaaS is going to complicate and hybridize user IT and business operational environments faster, and to a greater degree, than most user and vendor executives understand at this point,a Saugatuck writes. aThe vast majority of user IT departments will simply not have the resources to handle the influx of enterprise-level SaaSa expected to occur over the next seven years. More here

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Pervasive Software(R) Inc. , a global value leader in embeddable data management and integration software, today announced Metamorphosis 7.0, its seventh Independent Software Vendor (ISV), Systems Integrator (SI), Software-as-a- Service (SaaS) vendor and Business Service Provider (BSP) executive summit, will be held May 3-4, 2007 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, Calif. Metamorphosis 7.0 offers a compendium of integration best practices and real- world experiences, including hands-on knowledge of complex integrations between SaaS and on-premises applications. The ISVs, SIs, BSPs and SaaS vendors presenting come from a wide variety of industries, such as healthcare and financial services, to educate one another on successful business and technology strategies that drive high ROI and rapid results for customers leveraging Pervasive's agile, embeddable integration. More here

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