MSPmentor

Salesforce.com announced strong quarterly financial results today, and the company expects revenue for its full year (ending in January 2009) to exceed $1 billion. Does that mean Salesforce.com will become the first $1 billion software as a service (SaaS) company?

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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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Microsoft is preparing an “application streaming” initiative, in an effort to more effectively position Microsoft Office against Google Apps, according to ComputerWorld. Anyone who thinks this is nothing more than a commodity software war needs to think again.

While Google has lined up major colleges to standardize on Google Apps, Microsoft is quietly pushing cable companies to embrace its software as a service (SaaS) product portfolio. Here’s the scoop. Read More >

Software as a service (SaaS) remains a hot topic on Wall Street, especially as Salesforce.com shares hit an all-time high. The company recently announced a partnership with Google, and there’s speculation on TechCrunch.com that the search giant and the on-demand software company may get even cozier together.

A few weeks ago I noted that Salesforce.com plans to make a major announcement on April 14. I wasn’t sure what the news was, but there are growing indications that it includes Salesforce.com gaining closer hooks to Google Apps. If true, this could be a defining moment for the software as a service industry. Read More >

Move over, Steve Jobs. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff is teasing press and analysts with a cryptic invite to a major announcement on April 14.  Salesforce.com won’t say what’s cooking.

But we’ll be all ears, as Salesforce.com continues to evolve from a hosted CRM system into an application platform. Will Benioff start preaching about cloud computing? Does a key partnership await us? Other deadlines are calling, so we’ll need to chase down details about this event at a later event.

Ironically, one of the hottest technology trends — software as a service (SaaS) — has been burning investors on Wall Street. As a group, SaaS stocks are down 30 percent year to date, a far worse showing than the DOW (down about 9.74 percent) and the Nasdaq composite index (down almost 18 percent), according to SeekingAlpha.com.

So, what went wrong with the SaaS market? And what are the key lessons for managed service providers? Read More >

It was inevitable. As Salesforce.com continues to ring up record sales, rivals, startups and even managed service providers are saying they can offer the same quality software as a service — at a lower price.

A case in point: InfoStreet Inc. (www.infostreet.com) has launched a new version of its online CRM application. It targets small businesses, “particularly those which do not wish to spend $65 and up (per user) price of other Web based CRM offerings,” according to an InfoStreet press release. If you didn’t take the hint, InfoStreet was pointing to Salesforce.com pricing, and the company says its SaaS service can be had for about $10 per month per user.

But this is more than a SaaS play. There’s a managed services angle here, too. Read More >