Verticals onDemand, the pharmaceutical industry’s leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM solutions, launches a new category of on-demand applications – Mobility-as-a-Service™ (MaaS). Verticals onDemand’s new VMobile™ MaaS application provides users with offline access to their VBioPharma™ CRM system. For the first time, life sciences companies can deploy mobile applications that do not require additional maintenance costs or effort to support and enhance. More here

CPA2Biz, the majority-owned subsidiary of the American Institute of CPA`s (AICPA) and Bill.com, a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that provides businesses on-demand accounts payable software, announces a strategic business alliance to provide Bill.com to accountants and their clients. Bill.com is a new low-cost web service that simplifies the way companies manage, review, approve, and pay bills. Read more here

Prospective SaaS users are not only seeking more industry-specific SaaS solutions, they are also looking for more strategic sources for these SaaS solutions. Instead of contracting for a series of SaaS point products from a wide array of vendors, corporate decision-makers, both business and IT, are taking a closer look at the SaaS vendors’ overall portfolios, platforms, partner ecosystems and financial viability so they can establish broader, long-term relationships with a fewer number of SaaS suppliers. More here

The STRATO Business Portal brings all the online functions SMBs need into one integrated, comprehensive, online service. The SITEFORUM software combines a powerful Content Management System (CMS) with personalisation and multi-language with contact management, online marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), intranet/extranet functions, analytics, sales & support tools and document management. More here

The analysts back up their assertion with recent Forrester survey data. A late 2007 survey of 1,017 software IT decision-makers at North American and European enterprises found that SaaS adoption is growing at double-digit rates. More here

For example, a company can discover and locate all devices connected to its network, learn how many copies of Microsoft Office its employees are using, or find users with administrative privileges. The ability to rapidly find answers to such questions is important because more business processes are becoming digitized, which means more and more types of software -- and devices to run them -- are being added to the mix. Read more here

Tomoye, which in ancient Japanese means "revolution in the universe," is essentially an online expert advice aggregator for businesses. Designed for professional learning and problem solving, the platform helps workers find answers to questions (and by extension, solutions to problems), network and collaborate inside and outside of the enterprise they belong to. Read more here

The company has plans to launch a service it calls the HP Assessment Management Platform in August to help customers centralize all of their Web application security analysis programs into a complete solution maintained and managed by HP. More here

"There are still some reservations around SaaS, especially integration, customisation and security," said Forrester`s Gliedman. "These could be deal breakers, but it comes back to cost benefit. Do you want to spend a year putting up, say, a CRM application and making it look exactly how you want, or do you want something you can modify through configuration, rather than customisation?" Full article

Less risk, more reward? Regardless of how you do the math, software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are providing smaller businesses with software capabilities that previously only larger companies could afford. More here

Google may dominate in search, but it`s the company`s free consumer e-mail service, Gmail, that it sees capable of teaching the enterprise some lessons. More here

Under the Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA), Tricubes serves as a Microsoft Services Provider License Agent to provide SaaS (Software as a Service) mobile solutions to its customers in Malaysia and the rest of the Asia Pacific region. Read more here

According to ESG Research, 8 percent of large organizations have already deployed desktop virtualization, 9 percent are piloting desktop virtualization, and 32 percent are currently evaluating desktop virtualization. Read blog here

Netsuite has offered an on-demand ERP suite since 2003, when it was still known as NetLedger. But despite a relatively long existence in Internet years, it has never been able to announce anything like the deal Workday just made with electronics manufacturer Flextronics, to which it will provide software service for more than 200,000 employees. More here

Under the merger plan, EDS CEO Ron Rittenmeyer will lead a new organization called "EDS--an HP company" and report directly to Hurd. Livermore will continue to oversee HP`s Technology Services Group, but EDS, still based in Plano, Texas, will lead the outsourcing charge. More here

Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software, said that CORT has done an excellent job transforming labor management with UltiPro. The solution’s suite of features can help executives handle the entire gamut of employee-centric processes with a single software-as-a-service provider, Swick says. Read more here

IceLock has a special feature of protecting data that is stored on a hard-disk. The service can permanently delete data remotely over the Internet in case of theft. The service has a very easy approach to data encryption, can be downloaded from the Web and is also easily deployable. Read more here

Not all enterprise-level applications are a good fit for the small business owner, however, because some can be difficult to learn and manage. For example, high-end financial software applications are not as viable in a SaaS (software as a service) model because "the processes for a small company aren`t nearly as sophisticated," he says. More here

While analysts say the social software in SharePoint lacks the functionality and usability of competitor products, its tight integration with existing Microsoft systems such as Exchange and Office makes it an attractive buy for IT departments looking to capitalize on the Web 2.0 movement while still utilizing the technology tools they already have inside their companies. More here

Software as a service made its name with bold claims that it would force on-premises software into extinction. But with SAP becoming the latest vendor to create a hybrid model, the real dinosaur is the idea that companies must choose one approach or the other. More here

Based on open standards and best of breed open source technology, the Morph Application Platform provides developers with an end to end web application environment that includes load balancing, high availability infrastructure, distributed computing, virtualized web stacks, databases, managed backups and 24x7 monitoring. Read more here

This new model offers their traditional VoIP call recording product, SmartRecord IP, as Software as a Service (SaaS). The pay-per-use model is designed to assist both enterprise and service provider customers in slowly acclimating to call recording without the burden of a high initial capital investment. More here

Winston Damarillo, executive chairman of Morph Labs, Inc., believes the Philippines will become an important supplier of SaaS applications globally, and his company is providing products and services to help ISVs develop their own SaaS applications. “Morph Labs enables ISVs and entrepreneurs to enter the global SaaS marketplace and compete without making huge investments in technology capabilities,” said David Abramowski, chief executive of Morph Labs. Read more here

Who would have thought the meltdown in financial services could fuel the overhaul of the industry`s customer service departments? Actually, it`s just one of several factors driving companies to put customer service initiatives on the fast track in pursuit of compelling business advantage. More here

Microsoft recently announced it is testing an online-based subscription of its Office productivity suite code-named “Albany,” as another way to sell the software. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.) There’s plenty of competition out there already, with some programs being free, including Google’s Docs & Spreadsheet program, which also is in beta testing. Among its appeal is that files can be shared easily via the Web for collaborative efforts. More here

Jason Cooke, IT director with BT, advocated that, while there was growing attention being paid to SaaS, the application software should be given free to the potential users so they could investigate its capabilities and whether it was appropriate to the business needs. Read more here

When SAP`s first real foray into software as a service (Saas) was announced last September, the company aimed to have 10,000 customers on the enterprise resource planning tech by 2010, generating $1bn (£500m) in revenue. But yesterday the company extended this target by 12 to 18 months and added it will reduce investment in the tech by around €100m (£78m) during 2008, with no further "accelerated" investment planned for 2009. More here

AppFolio is about a portfolio of applications. We`re really focused on business management software for vertical industries, and delivering them as software-as-a-service. Our first product is AppFolio Property Manager, which is in beta now, and will be released in May. This is a product that really focuses on revolutionizing workflow software for the property management industry. Read more

Small business owners should ask how the vendor stores their data," said Smith. "A good vendor will have multiple, mirrored data centers, which means that client data is backed up in multiple locations and always available." More here

PaySimple, the leading provider of on-demand electronic payment solutions for small businesses, announced today that MultiFlor, a full-service floral decoration company that manages events esthetics for large and small corporate and social events, has cut its time to collect payments in half after implementing the PaySimple Solution. Read more

SPS Commerce, the leading provider of SaaS EDI services, and CORESense, the leading provider of SaaS-based integrated retail management solutions to small and medium-sized retailers (SMRs), today announce that they have teamed to provide mid-market retailers a unique SaaS order fulfillment solution. The combined offerings enable retailers to better leverage their CORESense solution by using SPS’ B2B integration and EDI enablement services to automate the sending and receiving of EDI documents such as invoices, purchase orders and shipping documents with their vendors. Read more

These offerings allow developers to include sophisticated capture, rich content management capabilities and information rights management in their software products. EMC`s commitment to the developer community means independent software vendors can deliver more complete solutions to their customers, enabling the rapid delivery of new products to new markets, growing top and bottom lines. Read more

IT WAS bound to happen. One after another, pieces of software have been moving online in a trend towards “software as a service” (SaaS). You can now manage your e-mail, write documents and edit spreadsheets using online services that run inside a web browser. Read more

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings continue to expand at a dramatic pace. According to a recent analyst report issued by Deutsche Bank, the SaaS market will increase from $3 billion today to $30 billion by 2013. This will represent 50 percent of all applications being purchased by organizations. Read more

Callidus Software Inc. (NASDAQ: CALD), the leader in Sales Performance Management (SPM), today announced it has opened a new operations center in Hyderabad, India. The center enables Callidus Software to add capacity in the critical areas of product development, consulting services, and technical support through a strategic alliance with Sierra Atlantic, the leader in offshoring enterprise applications and outsourced product development.Read more

usiness and IT managers have ranked software-as-a-service and Web services as the most important trends in the software industry for the third year in a row, according to an annual survey by McKinsey & Co. and Sand Hill Group, to be presented next week at the Interop/Software 2008 conference in Las Vegas.Read more

Although some would trace back the roots of software as a service to mainframe timesharing, what we would now call SaaS, or on-demand computing, is really experiencing its second coming.Read more1

MessageOne Inc. an industry leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enabled enterprise-class e-mail business continuity, compliance, archiving and disaster recovery services. The acquisition is a part of thecompany`s strategy to use SaaS applications and remote management tools to deliver configure-to-order IT infrastructure services to commercial customers over the Internet.Read more

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service, today announced that its first-ever Dreamforce Europe user and developer conference will take place at the Barbican Centre, London, England on May 7 - 8, 2008. Special guests Peter Gabriel, easyGroup CEO Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will join salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff on stage at the industry`s largest European Software-as-a-Service event.Read more

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA), today announced Solaris (SM) On Demand, its software as a service (SaaS) program for the independent software vendor (ISV) community. This program provides ISVs with the technology, hosted infrastructure and services needed to offer their software as a service. It is especially targeted at ISVs with a traditional, on-premise license model who want to offer their existing application on-demand without having to use a multitenancy application architecture. To provide the hosting services, Sun is working with several partners such as NaviSite for U.S.-based and European Union companies, AT&T`s USi Communications for U.S.-based companies and NTT Europe Online for European Union companies. With the Solaris On Demand program, ISVs can create offerings that meet the application availability, security, scalability and cost requirements of their own customers. Read more

Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft, complains that there`s too much hype about software as a service (SaaS), likening it to other technology trends that target IT, but fizzle out or do not achieve their hyped expectations. "We`ve seen that movie before," he grumbles. Read more

PaySimple, the leading provider of on-demand electronic payment solutions for small businesses, continues to honor its commitment to make the lives of small business owners easier by not only simplifying the invoicing and collections process, but also by empowering small business owners to do more to help the environment. Read more

Boomi, the market and technology leader for on-demand integration, today announced that Rick Nucci, Boomi`s co-founder and CTO, will participate in a panel discussion on software-as-a-service (SaaS) integration at Software 2008 on Wednesday, April 30 in Las Vegas. Read more

Key Survey by WorldAPP offers a set of new integration opportunities that will allow leading businesses worldwide to build new processes around online data collection. This is the next successful step in product evolution towards the SaaS 2.0 model. Read more

The first quarter of 2008 has already seen numerous landmark deals announced, including the pending bid for Yahoo by Microsoft, and in the U.K. the $1 billion leveraged buy-out (LBO) of Northgate Information Solutions by KKR and the recently announced GBP190 million recommended offer by 3i for Civica, PwC said. Read more

enius.com Incorporated, the leading on demand provider of real-time 1-to-1 marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, and salesforce.com , the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, today announced that more than 130 customers, including EasyLink, EchoSign, Jobscience and Xactly have successfully deployed SalesGenius via the AppExchange to immediately increase sales productivity. Read more

It`s a proverbial warning shot across the bow of "cloud computing" database service providers " most notably Amazon but also others. It`s also an attempt to steam ahead of the likes of Oracle and IBM. But most of all, Microsoft`s recent beta release of SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) provides an intriguing and potentially exciting opportunity for small and large businesses that are making a foray into the rapidly evolving Cloud Computing and Web 2.0 environment. Read more

No longer will users be focused on ROI calculations, rather they will look to make better and more efficient use of the technology. Given this change we wondered what should be on an SME’s shopping list this year, and asked some local executives for their views.Read more

Qualys, Inc., the leading provider of on demand IT security risk and compliance management solutions, today announced that its QualysGuard on demand platform was voted Best Audit and Vulnerability Solution for the second consecutive year at the annual SC Awards ceremony, held last week in San Francisco in conjunction with the recent RSA Conference, the world`s leading information security event. Read more

NetSuite Inc. NYSE: N, a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business software suites that include Accounting / Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Ecommerce software for small and midsized businesses and divisions of large companies, today announced that KANA Software, Inc. OTCBulletinBoard: KANA, a world leader in multi-channel customer service, has switched its business operations platform to NetSuite`s integrated system, delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). Read more

Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., the only proven provider of on-demand, integrated learning and talent management software, content and services, today announced that they have surpassed one million active subscribers using their market-leading suite in 141 countries around the world. Cornerstone is evolving the Software-as-a-Service landscape through its ability to deliver highly scalable, flexible and enterprise-class solutions for global organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees, as well as those with as few as 25 employees. Read more

Zenoss Inc., a leading provider of commercial open source network, systems and applications management software, today announced that SugarCRM, the world`s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, has deployed Zenoss for Service Providers to monitor and manage its end-to-end Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, including networks, servers and end-user application performance through synthetic transactions. Read more

But I believe he underestimates the trend because he doesn’t understand the motivation. (Belt Buckles of Estes carries a full line of trucker buckles. Wha? Read on. Read more

aaS providers are typically using open source operating systems, application servers and databases, Gartner analyst Robert Desisto writes. For example, Salesforce.com uses an open source database for a service in which customers access Salesforce data while disconnected from the Internet. Read more

It is delivered through its software-as-a-service model, Intersourcing. Over the next six to eight months, PSS World Medical will roll out UltiPro Performance Management, UltiPro Recruitment, and UltiPro Time and Attendance. Read more

SMBs are expected to be big customers of such platforms, including Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, as well as creators of the applications sold through them, reports News.com. Read more

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a provider of leading application infrastructure software to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today announced that Progress Software has been recognized by Everything Channel`s VARBusiness Magazine as one of North America`s top information-technology (IT) vendors for its Partner Program. Read more

Appirio (www.appirio.com) today announced four new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that bring together Google Apps™ and Salesforce CRM. The four Appirio offerings enable Salesforce and Google users to easily synchronize calendars, collaborate on marketing campaigns, find and embed documents, and create and share customized CRM dashboards. Read more

Telrex, provider of the award-winning CallRex™ suite of IP call recording and call center optimization solutions, today announced the availability of a subscription-based pricing model for all CallRex solutions. The subscription-based licensing model allows companies to simply pay a monthly fee for the number of users being recorded. Read more

Had you asked me this question a year ago, my answer would have been much different. Today, I’m much more positive about the idea of hosted applications. Read more

Enabling users to access all market offerings and find best priced option available, cytric g8 integrates offline and online bookings, direct links to service providers, and travel expense management solutions. Workflow supports booking of up to 20 travelers and also issues warnings pertaining to last remaining seats at special fare. Additional functionality covers hotel and car hire booking, transaction automation, and skill-based workflow routing. Read more

Analysts at Tier1 Research (T1R) find in a new report that since software as a service (SaaS) can be a cost-effective delivery method for software functionality, it is rapidly gaining acceptance. Nowhere has this adoption been more evident than in customer relationship management (CRM) – a front-end customer-facing platform consisting of sales automation, marketing automation and customer service. Read more

Skytap, the leading provider of cloud-based virtualization solutions, today revealed its vision for the next generation of offerings that harness the power of virtualized infrastructure.Read more

Vcommerce Corporation, the market leader in end-to-end eCommerce platform on-demand (SaaS) solutions, today announced the appointment of Bob Tuttle as President and CEO. Mr. Tuttle has over 20 years of experience developing high-growth technology companies and is an industry expert in retail industry technology solutions. Read more

"Law firms are increasingly demanding more from their PDF creation and management software; collation, redaction; electronic filing, bates stamping, document binding as well as tight integration into their business-critical applications, processes and systems," said Alvin Tedjamulia, CTO, NetDocuments. "pdfDocs Desktop provides an effortless integrated solution with our SaaS-based Document Management Services that we are delighted to offer our customer base." Read more

In a press release yesterday, Google announced a preview release of the app engine, a tool that allows developers to deploy code on Google`s infrastructure and then integrate it with other Google services. Read more

Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, today announced that Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff will host a customer, media and analyst luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco on Monday, April 14th at 12:00pm. Read more

European organisations are increasingly ready to invest in software as a service (SaaS), according to the findings of a recent end-user survey. Read more

Playing connect-the-dots with the data scattered across Web-based applications is no easy task. Picking up where software-as-a-service (SaaS) leaves off in terms of integration and interactivity is the relatively new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model. Bungee Labs, a young PaaS vendor, aims to ease the process of integrating siloed CRM applications with other Web-based business solutions and third-party data.Read more

Built and delivered natively on Force.com, Datasul Fleet Management showcases power of Platform-as-a-Service for business applicationsForce.com Platform-as-a-Service and AppExchange marketplace provide application development and distribution capabilities so developers and partners can focus on innovation, not infrastructureAppExchange economy continues its rapid expansion - now more than 42,000 application installs by thousands of customers worldwide. Read more

Analyst firm, IDC has found European organisations are ready for software as a service (SaaS).Read more

Digital Technology International, Salt Lake City, is introducing MediaHarbor, an enterprisewide software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted platform for the full suite of DTI solutions, including editorial, advertising, Web publishing and circulation.Read more