MSPmentor

While financial stocks were on a roller coaster ride, software as a service (SaaS) stocks delivered a strong showing for the week ended Sept. 19. In fact, MSPmentor’s SaaS 20 Stock Index rose 3.81% on the week. It was the first time the index rose since mid-August.

The week’s biggest winners included NetSuite (N, +18.21%), SuccessFactors (SFSF, +16.15%), Omniture Inc. (OMTR, +14.76%) and Blackboard Inc. (BBBB, +9.70%). The SaaS 20 Stock Index also had its share of weekly losers, including Dell (DELL, -12.66%) and EMC (EMC, -7.52%).

Here’s what went right — and wrong — for the SaaS 20 Stock Index during the week.

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Is the party over for VMware and the virtualization market? Yes and no. In a surprise move, former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz has been named president and CEO of VMware, replacing ousted co-founder Diane Greene.

One possible reason, notes Barron’s: VMware’s revenue growth for 2008 won’t quite meet the 50 percent target that Wall Street was expecting. Plenty of companies would welcome such growth problems, but VMware shares are down more than 20 percent on the news.

Software as a service (SaaS) may represent the future of IT, but MSPmentor’s SaaS 20 Stock Index continues to slide downward like the rest of Wall Street. While the Dow is approaching bear market territory — down nearly 20% from its October 2007 high — the SaaS 20 Stock Index has slid 16.38% in 2008 and 3.63% for the week ended June 27.

By comparison, the Dow gave up 4.19 percent, the S&P shed 3 percent and the Nasdaq fell 3.76 percent, according to the Associated Press.

For the week, only three of our 20 index members (Athenahealth, +0.20%; Blackboard, +1.94%; and Kenexa, +5.80%) posted gains. The index’s biggest one-week losers were EMC (-10.43%), Omniture (-10.15%) and Amazon.com (-7.94%).

Here’s more about our weekly winners and losers.

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I wouldn’t quite file this under “managed services,” but EMC’s latest acquisition — involving Infra Corporation — still caught MSPmentor’s attention. Unfortunately, the EMC press release is filled with technology jargon. But there are some key takeaways for managed service providers. Read More >

A few weeks ago, I started hearing rumblings about managed service platform providers embracing the virtualization market. One of the first movers in this effort is Nimsoft, which today unveiled automation tools for monitoring VMware environments. But Nimsoft won’t be alone for long. Plenty of companies are looking to convergence virtualization with managed services. Here’s a sampling of what to expect. Read More >