The BoSS Awards program was initiated by THINKstrategies in January 2009 to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Intuition provides a web-based learning management system (LMS) as a truly net-native, multi-tenant application. The SaaS solution has been designed to facilitate the delivery of learning at a fraction of the cost of traditional learning platforms. It is simple to deploy, intuitive to use, flexible by design, and fully customizable to meet an organization’s needs. It also enables organizations to perform sophisticated tracking, monitoring, and reporting of all learning to deliver tangible business results. The SaaS LMS is delivered to over one million users globally.

Click here to read today’s announcement regarding the business benefits of Intuition’s award-winning SaaS capabilities.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards and to apply for an award.

I was also impressed with the amount of attention ConnectWise’s executives, other event speakers and sponsors, and the conference attendees gave to the convergence of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), managed services and cloud computing.

ConnectWise may not be a household name in the SaaS or cloud computing markets, but it is a key player in the managed services arena. Although ConnectWise calls itself a professional services automation (PSA) provider for IT professionals, its software also helps them manage their helpdesk operations and sales processes. 

ConnectWise’s solutions are typically used by IT service providers, including VARs and MSPs, and it has built its success on a highly leveraged partner strategy. Its software is enhanced by and embedded with nearly 3000 third-party developers, vendors and service providers. In fact, the company’s partner strategy has succeeded in permitting ConnectWise’s solutions to support over 32,000 organizations via these partners, with a staff of less than 200. Approximately 40 companies were on display at the Partner Summit, ranging from small, niche players to Cisco, Intel, Xerox and Google.

Google’s presence at this event was particularly interesting. Although the Google representatives were primarily promoting its current Apps capabilities, it was obvious that they were also laying the groundwork for a broader array of cloud-services aimed at MSPs in the future. The attendees I spoke with already see Google affecting their businesses, most notably the organic growth of Gmail which is threatening to commoditize their managed email services.

The treat of commoditization was high on everyone’s agenda and to ConnectWise’s credit they scheduled Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine and the author of the Long Tail and Free, as one of the keynote speakers to discuss the strategies to survive the ‘freemium’ phenomenon.

The company’s co-founder and CEO, Arnie Bellini, has also become an evangelist for the power of the ‘cloud’ and opportunity to leverage SaaS solutions to permit VARs to migrate their businesses to managed services and enable MSPs to survive in an increasingly competitive market. He gave a convincing opening presentation about how rapidly changing customer needs are dictating a migration to the cloud and driving ConnectWise’s SaaS strategy.

He has not only positioned ConnectWise as a partner-friendly vendor, but as a facilitator of industry best practices via a combination of online resources and regional user groups.

He also demonstrated during his opening talk the company’s willingness to admit to its shortcomings by showing the results of a recent customer satisfaction survey which identified areas where it could clearly improve.

It was obvious that his candor and the company’s efforts to improve the quality of its products and services, along with its partnership approach, have won it tremendous good-will in the industry.

As a result, ConnectWise has succeeded in putting itself at the epicenter of the managed services industry and its Partner Summit has become the ‘go-to’ event for many of the attendees I met.

The energy at the Summit reminded me of Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference. And like Salesforce.com, ConnectWise is rapidly increasing its partner network by opening up its application program interfaces (APIs) to third-parties. The importance of the partner network as an influential channel to market was reiterated by the company executives who I met from HTG Peer Group, CoreConnex, SonicWall and Reflexion Networks.

Both companies also have bold and candid evangelistic CEOs who see themselves leading a revolution. Marc Benioff has become the poster-child for SaaS and the Cloud. In ConnectWise’s case, Arnie Bellini is becoming the spiritual leader of the “IT Nation” and MSP community.

For me, this event represented the convergence of the SaaS, cloud computing and managed services worlds. The Summit was also further proof that the world is moving rapidly in this direction because these on-demand alternatives are increasingly generating tangible and measurable business benefits for customers and providers alike.

RepFolio has launched a web-based platform which can transform the way B2B companies build and manage external sales forces with minimal upfront investment and zero overhead. RepFolio’s platform provides powerful online tools for both sales reps and businesses:

• Sales reps can browse and apply to businesses whose solutions fit their skills, and build and manage an “ecosystem” of services that can be cross-marketed to target customers. They can also generate detailed sales and activity reports, and track their commissions through the RepFolio platform.
• Businesses can receive applications and review profiles of prospective sales reps, track performance by service, on-board new customers, and issue and monitor commission payments via the RepFolio platform.
• Bloggers/web publishers can also browse and apply to businesses whose solutions fit their target audience, and run cost-per-action campaigns on their websites from SaaS companies they connect with in the network.

RepFolio publicly launched its services in September and has already enlisted Coupa.com, Intand.com and SurePayroll.com to its sales network, as well as over 100 independent sales professionals.

Click here to read more about this announcement.

The BoSS Awards program has been created by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

WebEquity offers on-demand lending software which helps over 500 financial institutions and 10,000 lending professionals automate and streamline their lending processes and reduce their operational costs, while making more consistent and profitable credit decisions. A unique benefit WebEquity offers lenders is a single system that works for commercial real estate, construction, commercial industrial, small business, agriculture and consumer loans. The company serves institutions in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Click here to read about the customer success story which earned WebEquity Solutions a BoSS Award.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program and the application process.

In DC, I had the privilege of presenting in the Convention Center’s main ballroom THINKstrategies’ perspectives regarding cloud computing, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services.

A year ago, less than 50 people attended my breakout session on this topic as these new services were just beginning to hit the radar-screens of government agencies as they anticipated the arrival of the newly elected Obama administration.

Last week, the number of attendees in my session was over twice the previous year’s total, the latest milestone in a steady rise which I’ve seen throughout 2009 of both public sector and commercial interest in on-demand alternatives to on-premise systems and software.

In the case of these government-oriented attendees, it is clear that the new administration’s push toward cloud computing is having a significant impact on their IT management policies and sourcing strategies. However, they are still uncertain about the true meaning of cloud computing and business implications of these services.

They are also very concerned about the security and reliability of cloud computing alternatives. These concerns were made very clear in a private luncheon session which I moderated during the NetworkWorld conference. Nonetheless, the representatives of government agencies and private contractors serving the government who attended the session recognized that the cloud computing movement is real and they must respond to it.

I had the privilege of sharing the mainstage on the DC Convention Center with Mladen Vouk, North Carolina State’s Information Technology Department Head, Professor and AVP. Mladen gave an excellent presentation regarding the university’s successful deployment of an internal cloud computing service.

Although his presentation clearly demonstrated the functional and economic benefits of cloud computing, the concerns of many of the attendees still represent an ongoing challenge facing on-demand providers, many of whom attended the SIIA’s OnDemand conference in San Jose last week.

The event was an important gathering of corporate executives of leading on-demand companies, as well as representatives of established firms trying to transition to SaaS and cloud computing models, along with a varity of entrepreneurs and investors.

The consensus of the crowd is that corporate acceptance of SaaS is rising, but confusion about cloud computing lingers. They also were frustrated by the current economic climate which is driving greater interest in on-demand alternatives, but also slowing the procurement process.

While the SIIA conference didn’t produce any revelations, it did confirm that the industry is likely to experience greater growth and turbulence in 2010.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Sabrix is a leading provider of transaction tax management software and services for companies of all sizes. Sabrix Managed Tax Service (MTS) is an outsourced sales and use tax compliance service that allows companies to entrust their compliance obligation to Sabrix tax experts. Sabrix MTS combines the services of professional tax experts with best practice methodologies and a SaaS version of Sabrix’s tax software.

Click here to read about the business benefits which Sabrix’s customers have gained which earned the company the BoSS Award.

Click here to read about the BoSS Awards and obtain information regarding the application process.

While I often disagreed with the POV of Gartner’s analysts, I found it useful to hear what they had to say because of their influence over enterprise IT and business decision-makers.

The past few years, I intentionally stayed away from the event because Gartner had fallen so behind the rapidly changing marketplace when it comes to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing. Instead, I’ve enjoyed referring to Gartner as a ‘lagging indicator’ of market trends.

However, I was very pleased to read the news today that Gartner has put cloud computing at the top of its list of top strategic technologies for 2010.

Although I could discard this announcement as another example of Gartner’s slow recognition of key market trends, I also believe that it clearly moves Gartner’s thinking about the cloud computing market beyond the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ and ‘trough of disillusionment’ onto the ’slope of enlightment’ in its infamous hype-cycle.

(Of course, I’ve been suggesting in my presentations to client and industry audiences that IT and business decision-makers have been on this slope of enlightenment for more than a year.)

What is also worth noting is that eight of the other nine strategic technologies for 2010 identified by Gartner are also intertwined with cloud computing, with the only exception being flash memory on their list.

Hopefully, Gartner’s recognition of the cloud computing movement will be another ‘tipping point’ for this nanscent market, and 2010 will see even greater growth and maturation of this important new IT paradigm.

The purpose of this new group is to bring together Euro-based SaaS and cloud computing vendors, enablers, integrators and industry experts to share best practices and promote new business opportunities across the continent.

The European Launch Promoters (ELP) are: Amazon Web Services, Cloudberry Associates, Cloudmore, Compubase, Dassault Systèmes, E-Kenz, Emailvision, Esker, Huddle, INES, ipsCA, McAfee, Microsoft Corporation, Mimecast, MrTed, NTRglobal, Odyssee Mobile, Oodrive, OpSource, Panda Security, Procullux Ventures, Qualys, RunMyProcess, Saas-it Consult, salesforce.com, Servoy, STS Group, SuccessFactors and Twinfield.

The group also includes the French ASP Forum, with 70 members, which has renamed itself EuroCloud France. EuroCloud also has local communities in the UK, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Spain. 

The group is actively recruiting additional members in hopes of growing to twenty (20) EuroCloud regional organizations and 500 members by 2014.

The formation of this new forum is timely because it provides further proof of the growing interest and demand for SaaS and cloud computing services worldwide. It can help educate those IT and business decision-makers in Europe who are still uncertain about the benefits and threats associated with SaaS and cloud computing. These were questions which I heard throughout my recent visit to Copenhagen.

The group can also build bridges across the nationalistic boundaries of the European community which have historically precluded geographically dispersed companies from deploying solutions across their enterprises in a consistent and cost-effective fashion.

While these would be welcome first steps, an association of this nature cannot be expected to fully address these issues. Too many proprietary interests among the individual members will prevent them from collaborating entirely. Therefore, there is still room for innovative SaaS and cloud computing vendors to devise their own Pan-European service delivery strategies building on the best practices and business opportunities identified by the group.

Nonetheless, EuroCloud is a welcome addition to the SaaS and cloud computing movement.

The BoSS Awards program was initiated by THINKstrategies to bring 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.

Host Analytics is a leading provider of on-demand corporate performance management  (CPM) solutions that help finance and departmental executives improve their budgeting, forecasting, financial consolidations, dashboarding, scorecarding, reporting and analysis.

Click here to read more about Host Analytics’ award winnning SaaS solutions.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards and to apply for an award.

If you’re looking for some interesting reading that you might have missed during the past week, here are a few good articles:

1. The French Get Lost in the Clouds Over a New Term in the Internet Age. This 10/14/09 Wall Street Journal article discusses the humorous way in which the French government is attempting to rename “cloud computing” because of its double-entendre meanings in the French language. It not only highlights the language barriers to promoting an idea internationally, it also speaks to the fundamental ambiguities of the cloud computing term which has slowed its adoption in many quarters.
2. To Do More With Less, Governments Go Digital. While the French government is trying to decide on the right term for cloud computing, this 10/11/09 NY Times article discusses some of the government initiatives in the U.S. aimed at  improving the quality and reducing the cost of services which were showcased during a two-day conference in New York City called, “Smarter Cities”. This event spotlighted a growing array of public-sector oriented projects which also includes the federal government’s new ‘appstore’, www.apps.gov, and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratories $32 million project exploring the use of cloud services for scientific computing.
3. Looking at Life as One Big Subscription. This 10/11/09 NY Times article points out how consumers and corporations are increasingly migrating to subscription-oriented services rather than acquiring traditional packaged products. This movement is drving the growth of everything from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing to Netflix and Zipcars. It is the business implications of this migration process in the technology industry which has been the primary focus of THINKstrategies’ consulting services since its inception in 2001.
4. Forecast for Microsoft: Partly Cloudy. Today’s NY Times includes a profile of Microsoft’s efforts to reinvent itself to remain relevant in today’s cloud computing environment. The company’s challenges echo those of every other established independent software vendor (ISV) which must rearchitect its applications, redesign their go-to-market strategies, restructure its revenue recognition models, and reorient their corporate cultures to be services-driven rather than product-centric. Microsoft is facing the most serious of these challenges and struggling to find the right formula for future success. However, I think they have a good chance of surviving this challenge and capitalizing on the ’shifting clouds’.
5. Will Cloud Computing Obsolete SaaS? This San Francisco Chronicle column includes an interview with Larry Augustin, the CEO of SugarCRM, who suggests that SaaS companies must evolve their operations to better leverage the cloud in order to survive long-term. This point of view gets to the heart of the debate about the line of demarcation between SaaS and cloud computing. Are they the same or different? I’ve always had the view that the success of SaaS has been the primary catalyst for the emergence of a broader array of cloud computing capabilities. If there is a distinction, then it is that SaaS has evolved into an rapidly maturing set of ‘packaged’ applications sold and delivered via the web, while cloud computing is a wider set of web-based development tools and delivery resources available on a pay-as-you-go basis that enable users to build their own solutions.