Collaborative Strategy Guild » SaaS

Salesforce Gets Into the HR Cloud With Rypple Acquisition – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD

Peter O'Kelly — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:45:00 +0000

SaaS app manifest destiny

Salesforce just announced that it is buying Rypple, an oddly-named outfit that specializes in performance management and goal-setting. It’s a cloud-based platform for giving employees feedback on how well they do their jobs, and which attempts to make the annual performance-review process — dreaded by so many employees and managers — less, well, dreadful.

Salesforce Gets Into the HR Cloud With Rypple Acquisition - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD

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Application Strategy 2.0 [Software Advice]

Peter O'Kelly — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Excerpt from a timely cloud reality check

This sort of development in the cloud has led to a false belief that a complete cloud adoption is on the horizon. Despite the fact that the cloud has proven itself in functionality, scalability and security, there are still certain culture barriers that need to be addressed. For example, manufacturers like to keep their product life-cycle management (PLM) design data behind a firewall. Is that safer than SaaS? No, not really. Does it make them feel better to be in control? Probably. There is a general cultural mindset that needs to be overcome before we see wide-scale cloud adoption across the enterprise.

I think the biggest change we are seeing in terms of strategy is that things are moving a lot faster now, and you have to be able to scale in order to keep up. You should still consider the same things when creating an application strategy as you did 20 years ago – what’s happening in the market? What are your business goals and needs? And can your IT architecture get you there?

Application Strategy 2.0

NetSuite Event Boasts New Offerings, Oracle’s Hurd – Digits – WSJ

Peter O'Kelly — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:48:00 +0000

Small world

But the company is also stepping up technical ties with Oracle, whose databases have long been a foundation of its services. NetSuite, has relied on Hewlett-Packard for computing hardware, is for the first time also adding Oracle servers that come bundled with its database software, says Zach Nelson, NetSuite’s president and chief executive.

[…]

Now it might not seen exactly surprising that NetSuite would choose hardware from Oracle, which entered that business by buying Sun Microsystems. Ellison and his family members, after all, held about 55% of NetSuite’s stock as of Mar. 31, according to its public filings.

NetSuite Event Boasts New Offerings, Oracle’s Hurd... Continue reading: NetSuite Event Boasts New Offerings, Oracle’s Hurd – Digits – WSJ

Salesforce.com Acquires Dimdim — SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ –

Peter O'Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:22:00 +0000

Sprinkling some Facebook magic pixie dust on SaaS CRM

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Dimdim for approximately $31 million in cash, net of cash acquired.

Founded in 2007, Dimdim has created critical real-time communication technologies such as presence, messaging and screen sharing. With the acquisition, salesforce.com gains Dimdim's real-time communication technologies, along with a team of world-class developers experienced in building cloud-based collaboration services. Salesforce.com will use the acquisition to bring new real-time communication capabilities to the Chatter collaboration platform, mirroring the proven Facebook model of combining collaboration and communication into an integrated service.

Salesforce.com Acquires Dimdim -- SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Microsoft shares (officially) its future BPOS plans | ZDNet

Karen Hobert — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:08:00 +0000

Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet brings us the latest BPOS roadmap announced at Mictosoft's Worldwide Partner Conference last week. The emphasis on selling SaaS is gaining ground at Microsoft, including free BPOS for partners, and more likely good deals for customers:

Microsoft showcased at the show this week a number of its partners who’ve already jumped on the BPOS bandwagon. To encourage others to start selling the suite, Microsoft announced that it will offer partners 250 BPOS seats for their own use.

Microsoft shares (officially) its future BPOS plans | ZDNet:

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?: Quantifying the Total Value Investment (TVI) of SaaS E-mail to Small and Medium Businesses

Karen Hobert — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:52:28 +0000

We’ve published another report!

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?: Quantifying the Total Value Investment (TVI) of SaaS E-mail to Small and Medium Businesses

CSG members Pete Lindstrom and Karen Hobert conducted and authored this study on quantifying the Total Value Assessment of SaaS E-mail. A worthwhile read if you’re trying to figure out how much your e-mail options will really cost you.

You can download the white paper here or go to our Research page.

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Mitigating Risk and Finding Opportunity in Software as a Service (SaaS) E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses

Karen Hobert — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:47:40 +0000

Announcing the latest CSG publication, “Mitigating Risk and Finding Opportunity in Software as a Service E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses.” You can download the white paper here or go to our Research page.

Software as a Service (SaaS) e-mail offerings provide some operational productivity benefits at lower prices, although it is not a silver bullet, and should not be considered a compromise to existing solutions. SaaS e-mail service bundles can provide capabilities not previously available with existing e-mail solutions especially with operational aspects of managing an e-mail infrastructure. Although total cost of ownership (TCO) is a leading driver for choosing SaaS e-mail, customers should approach SaaS e-mail options based on how the solution will improve the e-mail experience and increase user and operational productivity as well as mitigate risks.

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