MSPmentor

Evidence is mounting that the software as a service (SaaS) industry is doing well — but not quite as well as financial analysts had expected. The latest anecdote comes from Blackboard Inc., a company that offers hosted applications to colleges and universities.

I’ve tracked Blackboard for numerous years while working at a college and also contributing to University Business magazine. Blackboard was among the first niche, vertical market software companies to truly master the SaaS business model. So, how are things at Blackboard, and what does the data mean to managed service providers (MSPs)? Here’s a look.

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James Zachman is adding another twist to the Master MSP business model. As president of Real Time Data Services LLC, Zachman is leveraging offshore support in New Delhi, India, while continuing to build out his managed services business in Newport Beach, Calif.

Zachman says his company is blending:

• MSP platform hosting;
• software as a service (SaaS);
• 24×7 network operation center (NOC) initiatives; and
• help desk support services.

If Real Time Data Services truly delivers on all of those efforts, it’s the latest example of SaaS converging with the MSP industry. Read More >

Dell, in its latest bid to build trust and profitable relationships with managed service providers, hosted a Web seminar for about 75 partners on May 1. More Web seminars are planned, but something far more interesting caught my attention: It seems like some Dell managers truly do have the channel in their DNA.

In fact, Dell’s partner team includes channel veterans who have built partner networks for Cisco Systems, ComputerLand and McAfee, just to name a few. And Mike Menegay, director, Dell Business Services, has been a solution provider himself.

Does that mean Dell’s partner program will be perfect? Absolutely not. But is Dell sending the right signals to managed service providers? In many cases, yes.

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Talk about role reversal. A few months ago, RightNow was plummeting and NetSuite was skyrocketing. But the two software as a service (SaaS) companies appear to have traded places. Only a day after RightNow announced financial progress, NetSuite delivered growth projections that disappointed Wall Street.

The bottom line for SaaS — and the people who follow the SaaS industry — is pretty clear.

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RightNow, a CRM (customer relationship management) developer, gave skeptics reasons to believe companies can successfully leap from traditional software to newer software as a service (SaaS) business models.

Although RightNow wasn’t profitable in its most recent quarter, the company’s financial results easily beat Wall Street’s expectations. Here’s the scoop. Read More >

Anecdotal evidence suggests that managed service providers are pushing deeper into the Microsoft applications market. Most of the Microsoft-centric initiatives seem to involve hosted Exchange Server, Dynamics CRM and /or SharePoint applications.

The latest example involves Azaleos Corp. — a well-known MSP focused on Exchange Server — launching a managed SharePoint Server 2007 service called OneStop ViewPoint. The Azaleos strategy also involves a hybrid on-premise/off-premise MSP model, where some equipment is deployed at customer sites and other software runs remotely.

Here’s what aspiring MSPs can learn from the Azaleos strategy.

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RightNow, a CRM provider that has been shifting to a software as a service (SaaS) business model, is scheduled to release financial results after US markets close today.

RightNow’s results could give managed service providers and SaaS enthusiasts a few hints about the overall health of the on-demand software industry. Also, RightNow may help other companies to better plan their own shifts to SaaS.

So far, the move to SaaS hasn’t gone very smoothly for RightNow. The company hit a few financial bumps in recent quarters, but received an upgrade from one investment firm on March 31. We’ll be back with some analysis of RightNow’s results once they’re announced.

Mergers and acquisitions continue at a rapid pace in the managed services industry. The latest deal involves Alentus — a managed service provider with software as a service expertise — acquiring two Linux-centric hosting firms.

Based in Laguna Niguel, Calif., Alentus snapped up Austin, Texas-based Website Source, Inc. and SpeedFox, Inc., which specialize in Linux website hosting. The acquisitions reinforce the growing popularity of hosting both open source and closed source applications under one roof.

Alentus’s acquisitions are the latest in a growing list of MSP buyouts followed by our MSPmentor M&A Tracker.

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