IBM's Lotus Goes Live for SaaS Apps

Another big player has joined the SaaS ranks in the shape of IBM with LotusLive. The SaaS space gets more and more interesting every week especially now the big boys are adopting it :)

More info here
http://rcpmag.com/blogs/weblog.aspx?blog=3087

Thanks

Richard
http://www.saasforum.com/
http://www.saasblog.co.uk/
http://twitter.com/richardjeaton/

SaaS a ’No-Brainer’ for Small Wall Street Firms

Here's an article on how Wall Street IT organisations are embracing SaaS. Interestingly they are tending to keep their core trading systems entirely in-house but using SaaS for all non-core applications.

Read the full article is here:

http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/advancedtrading/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212701644&cid=RSSfeed_WST_News

Thanks

Richard
http://www.saasforum.com/
http://www.saasblog.co.uk/
http://twitter.com/richardjeaton/

Despite Dire Predictions, Open Source and SaaS Remain Promising

Although a recent Goldman Sach's report is predicting that things are about to get much worse for the tech industry there is a silver lining in Open Source and SaaS.

Take a look here and the linked article within it.

http://ostatic.com/blog/despite-dire-predictions-open-source-and-saas-remain-promising

Cheers

Richard
http://www.saasforum.com/
http://www.saasblog.co.uk/
http://twitter.com/richardjeaton/

See just how much SaaS can save you!

I'm often asked for ballpark figures on just how much money can be saved by going the SaaS route rather than with traditional on premise applications. For a while I've used a hacked together spreadsheet that lets me simply demonstrate the cost savings by plugging in a few key figures. These usually yield impressive results!

Well I thought it was about time I created a SaaS version of this (practice what you preach and all!) so even when I'm away from the office and/or don't have my laptop in front of me I can still do these quick calculations and demonstrate the savings to people.

I also thought it may be of interest to others so feel free to use it yourself. I have obviously had to make some assumptions on some of the fixed costs and the ROI is based on 3 years but it is great for ballpark figures. If anyone has any questions then feel free to ask.

Anyway, try it for yourself at http://www.saasroi.co.uk/

Any feedback is appreciated and I hope this will help other people demonstrate what a compelling argument there is for SaaS if only from a cost point of view!

Thanks

Richard

SaaS - A Verizon hot trend for 2009

This time it is Verizon endorsing SaaS as a hot topic for 2009.

The whole article (worth a read) is at http://www.computingsa.co.za/article.aspx?id=903520 but of most interest to us is the following...

"
Getting SaaSy

The network becomes king once again in 2009, making it the perfect platform for software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery. Serving content, applications and security in a centralised online environment will become the rage. Buying computing resources a la carte will help companies control costs while attaining the security, performance, scalability and reliability required for the enterprise. Consuming IT resources (connectivity, server and storage) on an as-needed basis will keep IT costs in control and eliminate the need, time and effort to outfit every desktop. Centralisation will keep IT departments on top of their game in 2009.
"

Thanks

Richard
http://www.saasforum.com/

Want SaaS? Get Integration First

This article discusses one of the barriers not often thought about by companies keen to produce a SaaS solution. SaaS is great if used for a new project with no previous data but what happens when a legacy system is moved to SaaS? What happens to your customers existing data? This has to be addressed otherwise your migration will fall at the first hurdle when your customer says "this is all great but I have 5 years of figures I need to move across"!

The full article is here:

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Web-Exclusives/Viewpoints/Want-SaaS-Get-Integration-First-51857.aspx

And it would be interesting to hear other people's views on how you are tacking this. Is it just a case of import functionality from all the existing legacy apps out there or is there a smarter way?

Thanks

Richard
www.saasforum.com

A dedicated SaaS forum now online!

I have just launched http://www.saasforum.co.uk/ which (as the name suggests) is dedicated SaaS forum for anyone interested or involved in Software as a Service.

I'd really value people's input and would like to make this a hub of SaaS discussions. I had a look around the net and amazingly there don't seem to be any other forums dedicated purely to SaaS!

At the moment there are sections for news, events, products, reviews, jobs, and a place to introduce yourself and your company.

Anyone can read the forums and to post you just need to register a username/password (to avoid those pesky bots/spammers) which takes no time at all and you can post straight away.

http://www.saasforum.co.uk/

I look forward to your feedback and please let me know if there is anything else you'd like to see or any problems you encounter.

Many thanks

Richard