THINK IT Services

Among my predictions for 2009, was that the new Obama administration would push legislation and take other initiatives to promote Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing as part of its overhaul of the government and economic stimulus efforts.

Sure enough, Obama’s new CIO–Vivek Kundra–made it clear yesterday that he is a big proponent of SaaS and cloud computing. Here’s what he said to the Wall Street Journal,

“I’m a big believer in disruptive technology. If I went to the coffee shop, I would have more computing power than the police department. Consumers had better technology than the government did. I’m all about the cloud computing notion. I look at my lifestyle, and I want access to information wherever I am. I am killing projects that don’t investigate software as a service first.”

Support for SaaS and cloud computing isn’t only coming from the top of the governmental pyramid. Some of the country’s school systems and universities are also making a concerted effort to move to the cloud.

I’ve seen this first hand through the experiences of my three boys who are using Google Apps at the college, high school and middle school levels as a result of ad hoc prompting by a new generation of young teachers who are bringing SaaS tools into the classroom unilaterally to improve their teaching ability.

This ad hoc adoption of SaaS in the classroom is being encouraged by Google with a concerted sales and marketing effort which mirrors the successful campaign which Apple aimed at the classroom a decade ago that has produced a new generation of workers to the business world who prefer Macs instead of PCs.

Abilene Christian University is an example of how the ad hoc adoption process, combined with Google’s new sales and marketing efforts, are succeeding in pushing institutions to migrate to SaaS. I had the privilege of moderating a session regarding SaaS, cloud computing and managed services for NetworkWorld’s IT Roadmap in Dallas where the university’s networking manager, Arthur Brandt, talked about their migration to Google Apps. He also revealed that their move was a part of a larger, nationwide migration of a couple dozen Christian universities. Click here to read more.

A SaaS vendor focused on the education sector, SchoolDude.com, recently conducted its 2nd annual survey of IT professionals working in K-12 education. The survey generated some interesting data about SaaS adoption patterns in the public education sector

• 47%  of the respondents are using at least one SaaS application
• Ease of deployment (72%) and less technical support required (65%)  were the greatest motivators
• Data security is the biggest challenge (72%), interestingly this is up from 40% in last year’s survey

You can obtain an executive summary or register to get the full report and hear a webcast about the findings.

The bottomline: A new generation of SaaS/cloud computing adherents are quickly emerging from our schools. And, the Obama administration is going to become a key proponent of the SaaS/cloud computing movement.

Savvis, Inc. has been named the first managed services winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations, including increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Savvis is an outsourcing provider of managed computing and network infrastructure for IT applications. A case example of the business benefits of Savvis’ services is Wall Street Systems, a provider of treasury, trading and settlement software, which decided in 2006 to make a strategic shift in direction and move from a standard licensing model to the new SaaS delivery model.

Click here to learn more about Savvis’ award-winning SaaS services. Read more about the BoSS Awards here.

SPS Commerce is the latest winner of the new Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

SPS Commerce is a leading supplier of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), business-to-business (B2B) integration, connecting partners in a supply chain. SPS Commerce.net is a suite of outsourced, SaaS services that improve the way trading partners manage and fulfill orders in the retail supply chain. 

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits SPS Commerce’s SaaS solution generated for one of the company’s corporate customers.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards.

I recently published a column in E-Commerce Times discussing the growing interest and adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools among IT professionals seeking to better manage their increasingly complex IT environments.

Two announcements during the past week illustrate the growing convergence of the SaaS and managed services industries as well, a trend which I’ve been talking about for the past two years.

The first of these announcements came from ManageEngine which unveiled a free beta of its new SaaS-based network, systems and security management software capabilities.

ManageEngine is a quiet giant in the IT management industry with over 37,000 companies utilizing its traditional software solutions. It is also a subsidiary of India-based, AdventNet, Inc., which also owns Zoho, the increasingly popular SaaS office productivity solution provider.

While ManageEngine’s new OpManager On-Demand offerings do not currently include the Zoho tools, they capitalize on the same service delivery infrastructure and SaaS industry experience.

Although ManageEngine’s OpManager On-Demand is designed to serve IT managers within user organizations, the company is also packaging, pricing and positioning its SaaS suite to support Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

Girish Mathrubootham, ManageEngine’s VP,  is quoted in the company’s press release as saying, “We are seeing a paradigm shift in the way IT is being managed today as enterprises demand affordability and value immediately.”

This echos the feedback THINKstrategies and Cutter Consortium gathered from IT managers in 2007 in our survey research which found growing adoption of SaaS-based IT management tools.

NTRglobal and N-able Technologies also announced a joint partnership this week in which N-able will add NTRglobal’s SaaS-based remote support capabilities into N-able’s portfolio of managed service solutions.

Economic and environmental forces have dramatically increased the level of demand for remote management capabilities like those offered by NTRglobal.

While there is a growing array of players in the remote management arena, Derik Belair — N-able’s Vice President of Business Development — told me the company selected NTRglobal because of its proven functionality, global reach, channel support capabilities and long-term financial viability.

Both of these announcements are the latest indication that MSPs, as well as IT managers within organizations of all sizes, are seeking SaaS-based tools to more effectively and economically fulfill their IT management responsibilities.