September 2007 Archives

I remember an old Dilbert comic strip in which Dogbert was using his newfound wealth to become a venture capitalist. Of course, his prospect's great idea turned out to be developing a new word processor for Windows, so Dogbert used... Read More..

SaaS blogger Bob Warfield made a bold statement the other day. In an interview with Concur CEO Steve Singh, he suggested that conventional software is inherently built on bubbles, whereas a SaaS model would have moved forward quicker without the... Read More..

IDC has released a study on the emerging SaaS channel in which it concludes that Software-as-a-Service may have a serious impact on traditional partner revenue streams. In the press release, senior analyst Erin TenWolde said, "Two big wrinkles for partners... Read More..

Since Yahoo! announced its intentions to buy Zimbra, a company that offers a messaging and collaboration suite via SaaS, PC World reports that Zimbra users are largely grumpy about the news. Citing a discussion thread on Zimbra's website about the... Read More..

In InformationWeek's CIOs Uncensored blog, Mary Hayes Weier reported that Larry Ellison has no interest in the SaaS trend because "there's no money to be made there." Because SaaS is so much cheaper than on-premise software as a rule, Ellison... Read More..

The ripples continue from Capgemini's decision to support Google Apps a few weeks back. Last Thursday, Rhys Blakely of UK-based Times Online issued an interesting report on the increasing competition to MS Office from IBM, Google, and Yahoo. The three... Read More..

There's still some debate in the blogosphere about SAP's grand A1S-turned-Business ByDesign SaaS gamble. On one hand, the mere fact that SAP is seriously looking beyond the safety of the old, familiar cash cows in the upper end of the... Read More..

Today was the big day for ERP giant SAP, which has officially unveiled its new product Business ByDesign, formerly known as A1S. According to a report by Computerworld, SAP states it would invest $400 to $550 million by the end... Read More..

Drawing from years of experience in the field, including time as a consultant and then time working with Salesforce.com, NetSuite, and Siebel, LucidEra CEO Ken Rudin has a lot to say about Software-as-a-Service and the latest developments in the business... Read More..

More interesting SaaS articles and announcements were all over the media today, including a piece by Ben Woodhead of Australian IT analyzing Salesforce.com's apparent dream of becoming the underlying platform for Software-as-a-Service using Force.com and the Apex language. In addition,... Read More..

Dave Rosenberg of InfoWorld posted a blog entry following the Dreamforce event in which he reflected on SaaS vs. Open Source. He pointed out a difference between companies that form a "community" vs. those that have an "ecosystem." Clearly open... Read More..

CRM giant Salesforce.com kicked off its annual Dreamforce user conference yesterday, and as expected, the show is spawning numerous interesting SaaS announcements. For starters, ebizQ has posted the most interesting new product announcements. Have a look at the following: Informatica... Read More..

An article from InformationWeek examines the virtual appliances market, an idea promoted by virtualization pioneer VMware. The article points out that virtual appliances are software bundles that contain many server-like functions without any hardware, and then an application and operating... Read More..

Silicon Valley's Trend Micro Inc. is a specialist in digital security products. At the end of July, the company announced SecureCloud, a business security platform delivered through Software as a Service. The company had previously specialized in on-premise software, although... Read More..

Next week should be an announcement-heavy one in the SaaS world, with SAP planning its preview of the much awaited A1S project and Salesforce.com holding its Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco. InfoWorld reported on the product that the CRM giant... Read More..

Internetnews.com's David Needle reported on an announcement that IBM will team up with StrikeIron to offer what Needle called Data as a Service (DaaS). As a part of the deal, IBM's Mashup Hub will now include seven of StrikeIron's data... Read More..

THINKstrategies has announced a new set of packaged services aimed at helping new SaaS companies and managed service providers to ensure that they are ready to deploy their solutions. In a press release, THINKstrategies states that it has developed its... Read More..

Another couple of interesting announcements came this week at BEAWorld. First, EnterConnect Inc. and BEA announced a partnership under which BEA will provide the infrastructure to power SOAAPPS.com, which will be a business on-demand marketplace for mid-market executives seeking enterprise... Read More..

It seems Capgemini's decision to support and offer Google Apps has sent ripples through the media and put a spotlight on the enterprise readiness of Google Apps Premier Edition. John Soat of InformationWeek's CIOs Uncensored weblog said that the Capgemini... Read More..

Application life cycle management company Serena Software today announced a new SaaS-based Mashup Exchange. The tool, called Mashup Composer, will be made available for free to all users, and customers will pay only when the Business Mashup is put into... Read More..

The news of the day is Capgemini's partnership with Google to boost the enterprise version of Google Apps Premier Edition. The global consulting services company said the move will "extend its portfolio of desktop solutions, enabling it to support more... Read More..

Dan Farber of ZDNet reported yesterday on a presentation made by Adam Carson of Morgan Stanley at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Carson has been "preaching the Web 2.0 gospel" to Morgan Stanley and reported that the company... Read More..

In eWeek's Channel Insider, Jeff Kaplan writes that a big question in the SaaS market is about the existence of a viable channel opportunity for solution providers that handle legacy applications. More and more service providers are trying to jump... Read More..

KMWorld Magazine has released its 2007 list of trend-setting products, and not surprisingly given the popularity of software-as-a-service, several SaaS applications made the cut. To name a few, DocZone.com and NetDocuments were both called trend setters, as were IntelliEnterprise, Tacilent... Read More..

Seems like the market for SaaS-based Web collaboration tools is continuing to attract vendors. Dan Farber at ZDNet posted yesterday about Intuit's plans to pour some new resources into QuickBase, a Web collaboration tool it acquired in November 1999. But... Read More..

IT Redux's Office 2.0 Conference kicks off today in San Francisco. This year, the producers took the step of offering an iPhone to all attendees in order to drive home the point that the future of the office isn't all... Read More..

An interesting disagreement occurred in the SaaS blog world when, over the weekend, blogger Anshu Sharma posted a rant about Software-as-a-Service in which he alleged that SaaS proponents tend to believe there is only one right way of doing SaaS... Read More..

Tim Ratliff of Hubspan has posted an interesting case study on EDN about "integration-as-a-service," or IaaS. Ratliff calls IaaS a close relative of SaaS, in which companies might access a single hub that connects all trading partners facilitated by widespread... Read More..

OpSource, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is a big name in the SaaS world. Offering infrastructure technologies that power numerous SaaS providers and on-demand companies, OpSource has won numerous awards from various industry bodies and has been ranked highly in... Read More..

Clint Boulton of eWeek reported on an interview with Burton Group's Guy Creese about Google Apps Premier Edition, suggesting that it "may not be all it's cracked up to be." Google Apps is cheaper than al,ternatives such as Microsoft Office,... Read More..