Just about everything seems to be available in version 2.0 these days. I think the first was Web 2.0, which as you probably know indicates the development of the Internet into an interactive, collaborative, social network.

And then came Business 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Office 2.0, Sales 2.0, and all the other 2.0s, all indicating
use of the same type of technology.

The same thing seems to be happening to the -aaS acronym.

Today I saw a news story about companies, such as Cool Blue Interactive and Cbeyond, that are delivering communications and telecom services on demand. CIO Insight called this CaaS, or Communication as a Service.

Having seen several similar acronym usages, I did some Googling and was surprised to discover that an entire alphabet soup of acronyms were floating around out there for on-demand technologies. Here's a quick rundown of the other -aaS acronyms floating around out there.

AaaS - Architecture as a Service

Not in wide use, this acronym was used by blogger Steve Richards to refer to architecture services such as virtualization technology.

BaaS - Business as a Service

Rather than an offering, this appears to be more of an idea that all businesses ought to make their offerings available as a service rather than a mere purchase.

DaaS - Data as a Service

This appears to have originated from StrikeIron, a company that aims to distribute live data across the Internet in a centralized location.

EaaS - Ethernet as a Service

WhatIs.com calls this the use of high bandwidth, fiber optic media to deliver Ethernet services to customers across a common broadband infrastructure.

FaaS - Frameworks as a Service

It's difficult to tell whether or not this is in wide usage, but a number of blogs describe it as an application development environment that is provided as a service.

GaaS - Globalization as a Service (also used for Governance as a Service

A Google search reveals that this acronym is starting to be used by those who would offer globalization services, as well as those who would use SaaS for data governance.

HaaS - Hardware as a Service

This is another uncommon one that is being used to refer to provision of virtual machines

IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service (also Integration as a Service)

MuleSource seems to be a primary user of the Integration as a Service definition, wherein system integration functionality is offered in the clouds (Rosenberg discusses this here). Infrastructure as a Service is the idea that customers would no longer purchase servers, software, data center space, etc. but would rather use those as an outsourced service, according to Wikipedia.

IDaaS - Identity as a Service

IDaaS is the idea that identity services can be purchased on an on-demand basis, and the acronym appears to be widely used even among Forrester analysts.

LaaS - Lending as a Service

Okay, so LaaS isn't really in wide usage, but blogger Akash Bhatia used the term in commenting on IBM's Lender Business Process Services and likening it to an on-demand lending service.

MaaS - Mashups as a Service

Bloggers around the Web use this acronym to refer to the "convergence of SOA with Web 2.0," as Chuck Allen of HR XML puts it.

OaaS (multiple meanings)

Around the Web, this seems to be used for everything from "Organization as a Service" to "Optimization as a Service" to "Operations as a Service."

PaaS - Platform as a Service

Salesforce.com is pushing this one in a major way to describe its new Force.com offering that enables businesses to create and run applications on-demand.

TaaS - Technology as a Service (also Testing as a Service)

The latter seems to be used by Blue Star Infotech to describe an independent testing service it offers to ISVs. Technology as a Service seems to have a very similar definition to Business as a Service and Organization as a Service.

VaaS - Voice as a Service

A company called M5 Networks uses this as a means of offering call center services through an on-demand model.

WaaS - Whatever as a Service

Blogger Darren Wesemann has a good point in using this acronym to describe the multitude of "as a Service" acronyms.

XaaS - X as a Service

This term is a synonym to WaaS. Blogger Lincoln Murphy attempted to coin the term but then discovered it already existed. His post links a YouTube video someone made about the term.

ZaaS - Zero as a Service

The sole use of this term seems to be by the Project Zero development team in discussing the attempt to expose samples as a service.

Is overuse of the acronym destined to give everyone a headache trying to figure it all out?

If you know of -aaS acronyms not listed here, please post them in the comments below!

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The concept of Platforms at a Service (PaaS) has that distinct smell of overambition that waft through the IT sector with more regularity than most of us would probably like.

To recap, PaaS is about offering an online platform complete with the application development, data storage and other tools required to run multi-tenanted, massively scalable applications, explains Ovum analyst David Bradshaw. That falls in line with the previously announced Salesforce.com SOA that marries ERP functionalities with on-demand services. You know, kind of like the stuff SAP has been trumpeting in its new Business ByDesign product for a while now.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves; Salesforce.com, a Force (ha ha) to be reckoned with in the SaaS space considers PaaS the next evolutionary step in its business model.

Indeed, as CEO Benioff made clear in his Dreamforce 2007 developer conference speech last month, he views as the new model that will help his company keep up as Microsoft, SAP and other heavyweights charge full speed ahead into the SaaS space in the next few years.

Judging by the blogosphere, however, far from everyone shares Benioff's grand PaaS vision. Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups.com questioned the wisdom of putting all eggs in one basket. The question, as it stands, is less about technology and more about strategic vision. Or to put it more pointedly:

"Is your PaaS vendor going to be tempted to enter your SaaS market?" Smoothspan asked. "If they’re already an application vendor, it’s scary. What are the chances Marc Benioff will let a breakthrough CRM component thrive on his platform versus taking steps to force them to sell to him or worse, building a competitor?"

That, in addition to the inevitable wobbliness that comes with new models, is a strong argument against PaaS' future. Miracles can happen, but we're not holding our breath.

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IT Week has an interesting commentary by Rod Newing on how SaaS may impact the mission critical accounting systems market. Like many other fields, SaaS is a common topic in accounting circles, but analysts quoted in the article predict that SaaS will not affect this particular market for a few years given that companies aren't typically inclined to seek migration of mission critical accounting software.

The article had some interesting statements about the barriers to SaaS migration, particularly that of the emotional barriers. Companies commonly fear having data hosted elsewhere and fear what could happen if the SaaS provider had a network outage and an application became unavailable. IT Week calls these fears irrational, remembering that that most reputable SaaS providers will have a team of in-house specialists focused on problems of data security and meeting of service level agreements guaranteeing specific amounts of uptime, so in many cases, SaaS could be even more reliable than in-house options.

ComputerWorld addressed some of the same points in a piece listing nine things you "need to know" about SaaS. Nearly all vendors guarantee 99.5% uptime or greater for applications and have methods in place to address specific customers' security concerns, such as keeping data inside a firewall for customers that require in.

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If you've visited SaaS Week before, you have probably noticed that the interface has changed. I'm happy to announce that we have just finished migrating SaaSWeek.com onto its new home in the ebizQ network.

Now that SaaS Week has officially joined ebizQ, vendors discussed on SaaS Week will get more exposure and coverage. On ebizQ, SaaS Week readers will be able to more easily access a network of SaaS-related webinars, white papers and reports, and podcasts.

If you subscribe to this blog's RSS feed, you will not need to change any of your settings.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy SaaS Week's new look!

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I read an interesting blog post today by Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet, in which Blankenhorn mused on whether primitive Internet connection speeds would drag down growth in niches like Software-as-a-Service. Blankenhorn asked his wife to try an online spreadsheet application and then found that, after filling a few dozen cells, the application started taking minutes to load each new entry, despite having a cable Internet connection. (More on Blankenhorn's experience here.)

Blankenhorn then brought up the idea that primitive Internet service could be a major sticking point to growth of on-demand applications.

The idea definitely has some merit. Even though most metropolitan areas in the US have a choice of broadband connection methods, many areas still do not. And although most enterprises count on having a steady, fast Internet connection and have large IT departments to keep things running, many SMBs or remote offices to larger enterprises might not have an always on, always fast Internet connection. And even though most vendors of Web-based applications would have near-constant availability as a matter of critical importance, the customer's end would also need to have a steady, fast Internet connection to make sure that the employees could efficiently access the application.

Again, probably not a matter of critical importance in a large company located in a metro like Silicon Valley or NYC, but it could certainly be an issue for, say, the IT department of a department store in the middle of the Great Plains that's still working off dial-up or a slower cable Internet connection.

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An RBC Capital Markets survey reported by IT World Canada said that more than a quarter of IT managers from around the globe like the software-as-a-service model and an almost equal percentage are considering SaaS adoption. The numbers were drawn from a random sample of 800 IT managers attending the North American Technology Conference. The group also reported that TCO rather than security was the main barrier to SaaS adoption, and that CRM was the leading application being adopted through SaaS, followed by human resources. Read more.

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James Taylor: I had an interesting call with Aaron from SeaTab last week. SeaTab is a SaaS BI vendor focused on retail, CBG and supply chain. Aaron was briefing folks as SeaTab had a new release out - we did not get into the details as I was more interested in general questions but you can see the press release they put out here. Aaron went through the basics of the product, describing it as very user configurable, down to calculations in individual reports. The integration of structured data from almost any source is a big focus and the product boasts that it requires no physical data warehouse or marts - it has no pre-defined dimensionality. More here

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OpSourceac, the SaaS delivery experts and Scio Consulting, a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-related software development and consulting services, announced today that the two firms have formed a partnership designed to accelerate the adoption of the on-demand delivery model by software companies. Many software and web companies that wish to enter the growing SaaS market lack the resources and/or knowledge necessary to develop, let alone deliver on-demand products and services. Under the terms of this non-exclusive agreement, Scio will provide the software development and consulting necessary to create on-demand products for companies and OpSource will deliver and manage those applications.

Luis Aburto, CEO, Scio Consulting, said, aThis partnership will make it even easier for companies to enter the on-demand market. Not only will they receive needed consulting and software development services, theyall experience a seamless transition from application development to delivery. Our software engineers will develop customer applications for the same OpSource platform that will deliver the production versions. The services of Scio and OpSource complement each other perfectly.a More here

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Via Datamation: While more industries are taking to the software-as-a-service model, experts warn that offloading your applications does not mean offloading responsibility. aItas important to understand that even if you go with a hosted service, you still have to manage the quality of that application,a says Irwin Lazar, analyst with Nemertes Research.In the SaaS model, applications are hosted by providers over the Internet and companies are charged for usage rather than ownership. Lazar says the benefit of this approach is that IT groups do not have to spend limited budgets to buy and operate complex infrastructure. More here

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The pharmaceutical industryas first Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM application for managed markets has been selected by Publicis Managed Markets (PMM), part of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group. This marks Verticals onDemandas first sale of VBioPharma and the first time an industry-specific CRM solution has been applied to such a specialized area of pharmaceuticals as managed markets. PMM, a comprehensive services provider for managed markets, goes live with Verticals onDemandas VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition at the end of July and will leverage decades of industry expertise to provide rich product insights for future versions of VBioPharma. More here

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Google's Postini acquisition and Salesforce's development capabilities lend enterprise-level chops to the software-as-a-service model With two important announcements, one this week and one last, we are finally starting to see a critical mass build around SaaS (software as a service). More here

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Microsoft and its partners must change the way they have traditionally done business to accommodate software as a service, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told attendees at its annual Worldwide Partner Conference here July 10. More here

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David Linthicum on : SaaS and Virtualization
Virtualization has been a hot topic for the last few years as corporate America seeks to do things faster, better, and cheaper. Lately, I've been getting a lot of cross links with SaaS, so perhaps it's time to drill down on this topic a bit.A More here

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The GravityZoo Company has announced the first release of its GravityZoo music and video management application MediaZoo Beta One and announced simultaneously the release of the latest version of the GravityZoo Framework Beta Two.The GravityZoo Company is dedicated to enabling Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the Web beyond Web 2.0 as the GravityZoo Framework enables multi-tenanted SaaS platforms to be developed in a highly networked world.

The company has also signalled its intention to release in the near future CollabZoo, the next generation collaboration environment to be used in the GravityZoo OpenOffice.org porting project. The GravityZoo Company will kick-off the porting project at the OpenOffice.org Conference (OOoCon 2007) to be held in Barcelona, Spain on 19th-21st September 2007.

Marc Vrijhof, The GravityZoo Company co-founder and CEO says, i?1/2Wei?1/2re seeing global economic growth and competitive pressures forcing the increase in SaaS adoption. But global operations need global connectivity, mobility and collaboration and that means that customers are demanding greater access, better support and more specific solutions.

This is causing disruption in the current software development value chain with Web enablement as a stop gap solution, he adds.The GravityZoo Company, Microsoft, Adobe and Google all recognise this and are addressing the challenge with differing approaches and products in the market. All aim to provide Rich Internet Applications but only The GravityZoo Company is combining this with enabling SaaS adoption. More here

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SWsoft's Director of Technology, Ilya Baimetov, believes that virtualization plays an important role in the SaaS world. He even goes on to say that the benefits are so significant, that he belives no SaaS provider will be able to be competitive without using virtualization. To that point, he offers the following examples on one of SWsoft's Blog sites:Provisioning. Image-based deployment of virtual machines is much simpler and less error-prone than an installation process requiring many steps in the configuration. Virtuozzo, with extremely compact images, makes provisioning a snap. More here

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Via Techcrunch: Hereas a story that weave been tracking since last year - Salesforce and SAP competitor NetSuite just filed its S1 registration statement with the SEC, the first formal step in the IPO process. More here

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Via CIO-TOday:-Software-as-a-service offerings are expanding, and gaining more acceptance. How would you like to just stop deploying enterprise Relevant Products/Services software, stop monitoring application performance, and stop participating in the finger-pointing and second-guessing which occurs when there are performance problems? That's the basic attraction of software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Customers access SaaS applications and data via the Web and essentially rent the application from the SaaS provider on a per-user or per-month basis. The SaaS provider is responsible for delivering, securing and managing the application, data and underlying infrastructure Relevant Products/Services More here

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Axentis, providers of the industryas most comprehensive and widely deployed governance, risk and compliance (GRC) management solution, announced today that Robert Hoyt, CEO, will share his Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) insight during the Bank of Americaas Private Software Company Panel Day on June 26. Invited to participate on a panel debating related technologies, he will discuss how the SaaS model can drastically improve an organizationas efficiencies by ensuring continuity across the enterprise, as well as with vendors and customers.

Mr. Hoyt draws on more than 15 years of enterprise software experience coupled with his steady contribution to establishing Axentisas SaaS-based business model. Today, the companyas flexible and reliable approach to GRC management is the chosen solution by more than 775,000 users faced with increasing regulatory requirements.A A More here

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SaaS Week is now officially a part of the ebizQ network family!

Visit ebizQ here. To learn more:-

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Vyew, which recently emerged out of Beta, introduces version 2.5, one of the first online applications to fuse both live meeting and asynchronous collaboration capabilities to improve content collaboration, online meetings, and workflow. It is ideal for a wide range of users, from independent professionals to small businesses and workgroups.With Vyew 2.5, people can create VyewBooks to share, present, and interact with other people around all forms of content such as Microsoft Office files, pictures, audio and video. Tools to create new presentations are also included within the suite. Participants can also share their desktop view for live sharing of files, images, and Web sites. The new version also enables people to print VyewBooks.

VyewBooks are now also portable in 2.5 with the addition of an embeddable Vyewlet generator. Vyewlets are read-only VyewBooks which can be posted outside of Vyew -- directly in blog posts, Web sites, social networks, and any online page -- to create dynamic, multimedia presentations to engage viewers. If and when a Vyewlet needs to be updated, it can be done so inside Vyew with changes pushed live to the Vyewlet via an RSS-like mechanism.

More here

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Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, revenues in India will exceed US$48 million by 2008, up from US$7 million in 2005, according to a study by Springboard Research. The analysts say this positions India as the fastest growing SaaS market in Asia Pacific. The study also revealed a mismatch: high levels of awareness, low levels of penetration, among Indian SMBs. More here

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Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, and Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] today announced that they have formed a strategic global alliance to help millions of businesses leverage the Internet to achieve success. ebizQ received the following: The newest product resulting from this alliance, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, is a robust offering that combines the power of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWordsac platform to achieve integrated sales and marketing success. This joint solution provides businesses of all sizes with the same tools used by larger enterprises to successfully attract and retain customers. More here

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Via Column2: Following hard on the heels of LucidEra, which I reviewed in March, OnDemandIQ has launched Insights, a hosted dashboard and reporting service aimed at small and medium businesses. I'm very eager to see how these new SaaS BI offerings are accepted in the marketplace -- has anyone out there used them yet? More here

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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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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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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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Symantec Introduces Security as a ServiceVia ebizQ: In a welcome shift, Symantec today announced that they will begin the beta launch of the Symantec Protection Network, which is to provide affordable security to small and medium sized businesses.

Symantecas first offering will be an Online Backup Service, which will provide a cost-effective and reliable back-up service for business-critical data, all from the convenience of a web browser. This service will assist with one of the most pressing problems smaller companies face today a disaster recovery. More here

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The demand for automated incentive compensation has brought it into the on-demand world. Implementing a world-class enterprise incentive management (EIM) system is essential given todayas fierce global competition, and as Software as a Service (SaaS) gains momentum, more and more companies look for EIM in a SaaS model.

The mission-critical, confidential nature of EIM differentiates it from other applications and requires specific SaaS capabilities. Organizations examining EIM applications with the goal of leveraging SaaS must evaluate prospective vendors on a number of counts. Starting with a best-of-breed EIM application is most important, followed by a careful scrutiny of the vendoras SaaS architecture model and other contracted provisions. The model should minimize privacy and security concerns, maintain or improve reliability, and ensure availability, scalability and performanceaall while effectively containing costs and accommodating application complexity. The ideal architecture helps accomplish these objectives via physically separated client databases, a shared infrastructure and multiple application versioning.

Value of SaaS for Supporting Effective EIM
As the numbers of SaaS deployments expand worldwide, many analysts forecast a strong upward trend in outsourced applications. According to analyst firm Gartner, Inc., aBy 2011, 25% of new business software will be delivered as SaaS (0.7 probability).a

Economic pressures, information technology (IT) prioritizing, fierce competition and a heightened emphasis on core competencies are making SaaS more and more attractiveaand it is effective for an increasing number of business processes. The growing popularity of Web 2.0 collaboration and SaaS technology improvements make SaaS a sensible next step.

Abhijit Dubey of McKinsey revealed that a new survey by his organization has found that the proportion of CIOs considering adopting SaaS applications in the coming year has gone from 38% a year ago to 61% nowa|. Itas an indication of a sea-change in acceptance of SaaS over the past year,a stated software industry trend strategist Phil Wainewright.

• EIM systems management is usually outside an organizationas core competencies. BusinessWeekOnline recently published a commentary on the myths of SaaS, indicating that atodayas economic and competitive pressures make nearly any form of outsourcing fair game. Many companies now consider various IT functions and business applications commodities and not core competencies. This has made SaaS, essentially an outsourced application management business, more attractive today than ASPs and hosting services of the past.a

• EIM does not require on-site deployment because it operates effectively outside a corporationas walls. SaaS efficiently manages well defined tasks and business processes that can be performed externally and integrated into the enterprise. EIM fits this category.

• EIMas purpose is positively impacting the bottom line, not escalating costs. According to Information Week, aSoftware as a service is starting to gain favor for several reasons: Itas relatively easy and inexpensive to implement; itas flexible; it doesnat require as much infrastructure; and its costs are more predictable.a

About the Author:-
Jeffrey Saling is Vice President, Managed Services for Callidus Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD) Jeff Saling came to Callidus Software with a successful history of building and managing professional services organizations and operations of technology based businesses. He has extensive experience in starting up and the management of services based business units with a high degree of large volume production operations with software technical architecture focus. Prior to joining Callidus Software, Jeff worked for Chordiant Software (Nasdaq: CHRD), where he served as Vice President of Field Operations for North America. He successfully directed the professional services and sales engineering units for Chordiant in North America with a team of 100+ people servicing dozens of software installation and engineering projects for Chordiantas customers, plus managed the team providing technical sales support required to sell into hundreds of Chordiantas prospective customers. Prior to joining Chordiant, Jeff served as General Manager (Senior Manager) for Accenture (then called Andersen Consulting) where he started up the first ever firm owned and operated outsourced call center for a top 10 Fortune 500 company. Jeff also served as Vice President and Director of Operations for Vehicle Information Network and Consumers Car Club, consumer focused electronic classifieds and vehicle buying, financing, and insurance services based start-ups. Jeff holds a BS in Business Administration, Production & Operations Management from California State University, Hayward.

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Lumen Software, a leading provider of commercial open source Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and portal solutions, today announced its flagship platform, Lumenation, and the Lumenation Software Development Kit (SDK), are available immediately for free download. The products give PHP and AJAX developers a way to rapidly build, deploy, manage, and sell SaaS applications.Lumen's SaaS platform is in use by more than 200 commercial customers with over 150,000 users of on-demand applications. Lumen's focus on the world's 5 million PHP developers validates the work of industry pioneers SugarCRM, developers of a large CRM application written in PHP, and Zend, creators of the world's most popular PHP application platform. Lumenation is the industry's first PHP platform to focus on SaaS developers, making PHP an effective alternative to proprietary SaaS development platforms such as Saleforce's AppSpace and Microsoft's Live Core.

"Lumenation is a superior alternative to proprietary SaaS development languages because the product's flexibility and openness make development of web-based on-demand applications quick and inexpensive," said Doug Clark, Managing Partner at RDClark Associates, a Kansas City based independent systems integrator. "Lumenation is easy to customize for people with very basic programming skills. I can easily make a profit for my business by selling commercial Lumenation applications and customization services to smaller sized companies or workgroups within larger organizations."

More here

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Via cbronline.com: Software-as-a-Service is tipped to be one of the biggest trends to hit the technology sector in 2007, but its rise is being met with mixed emotions in the IT services community.

On the one hand, co-location companies, managed services providers, systems integrators, and consultants all sense an opportunity to help the independent software vendors build the data center and hosting infrastructure they need to deliver their applications through a web-based services model, as well as advize them on their pricing, billing, and go-to-market strategies.

More hereA

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At Ajaxworld Expo ThinkFreeas CEO, previewed a new version of Write, the companyas version of Microsoft Word. ThinkFree Write will feature a new, high performance, advanced Ajax-based aQuick Edita feature that succeeds where other Ajax-driven online word processors breakdown.

The company initially integrated Quick Edit into its applications last year in response to customer feedback suggesting a preference to operate in one of two modes: either to make some simple changes/additions and to interact with a rich formatted document offering most of the functions available in Microsoft Office when needed.

The first version of aQuick Edita Write met the initial needs of users while maintaining a high level of Microsoft Office compatbility. The other version was packaged as aPower Edita and developed with Java in order to deliver on formatting and functionality, which is capable of more complex operations and performance over AJAX counterparts. The Java version looks and works like Microsoft Office.

The new aQuick Edita mode of write goes far beyond the other Ajax capabilities currently on the market. The new Ajax architecture will be available in April and can handle files that contain hundreds of pages at any file size.

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Softscape, today announced the latest version of its flagship Softscape Apexac Human Capital Management (HCM) platform. This release expands Softscapeas integrated human resources system with advanced talent management functions, manager effectiveness content, a compelling new user experience, and additional customer and user configuration capabilities. Now organizations of all sizes can choose a flexible HCM Software as a Service (SaaS) offering with complete configuration control of their business processes to ensure employees and managers are more successful on the job.More here

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