MSPmentor

Sparxent, a start-up company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is seeking to acquire managed service providers and VARs that generate roughly $5 million to $20 million in annual revenues.

The company, backed by vSpring Capital, today disclosed that it has acquired NetworkD Corp. of Newport Beach, California. Sparxent has also signed a letter of intent to acquire Arbyte of Moscow.

The VAR Guy spoke with Sparxent co-founder David R. Taylor to learn more about the company’s ongoing acquisition strategy. Here are some highlights from the conversation. Read More >

In the past week, I’ve run into four of the most successful software as a service (SaaS) companies that Wall Street investors don’t know — at least not yet. Here’s a quick look at the companies, and their critical importance to the SaaS industry. Read More >

RightNow, a member of our SaaS 20 Stock Index, has released quarterly results that reveal accelerating software as a service (SaaS) sales. You never know how investors are going to react — especially as oil prices fluctuate by the hour. But RightNow’s optimistic financial outlook could be reassuring to the SaaS industry. Here are some of the financial figures RightNow released July 30.

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RightNow, one of the leading publicly held software as a service (SaaS) companies, is scheduled to announce earnings later today (July 30). We’ll provide some perspective once we see the numbers.

RightNow is one of companies within the our SaaS 20 Stock Index.

Software as a service (SaaS) and open source continue to converge. The latest example is Apatar On-Demand, which now synchronizes Salesforce.com CRM and Intuit QuickBooks accounting software.

Apatar specializes in open source tools for data integration. And filling the gap between Salesforce.com and QuickBooks should be of great interest to VARs and managed service providers. Here’s a bit more about some of the trends here.

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Microsoft has announced pricing and partner details for Microsoft Online Services — the company’s software as a service (SaaS) product portfolio. At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, the company also pushed downstream with entry-level SaaS offerings for so-called “deskless workers” who don’t spend much time on computers but still need to collaborate with peers.

Here’s a quick overview of the product portfolio, and the implications for managed service providers.

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Is software as a service (SaaS) killing Microsoft? Hardly. Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, is expected to discuss SaaS during his July 8 keynote at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston. But even before Elop takes the stage, here are five reasons why Microsoft won’t lose the SaaS wars. Read More >

MSPmentor’s SaaS 20 Stock Index, which tracks the software as a service industry, slid 1.75 percent for the week ended June 20, 2008. But that’s not so bad, considering the Dow slipped 4 percent on the week and hit a 3-month low.

Of our 20 index members, only Amazon.com (AMZN, up 2.44%) and Taleo Corp. (TLEO, up 6.07%) posted sharp gains on the week. The index’s biggest weekly losers were Constant Contact (CTCT, down 6.85%) and Salary.com (SLRY, down 10.92%). The overall index (containing these 20 companies) currently stands at 859.98, down 14% from a starting value of 1,000.00 on January 1, 2008.

Here’s more about our weekly winners and losers.

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