THINK IT Services

THINKstrategies announced today that ActiveConversion has been named the latest 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 as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

ActiveConversion is a leading provider of marketing measurement, lead management and demand generation systems for companies with fewer than 1000 employees. Its solutions make it easy for companies to see which marketing initiatives are paying off, and to produce sales-ready leads. ActiveConversion delivers its solutions as a hosted solution through a low monthly subscription which has been certified by KPMG and Salesforce.com.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits that earned ActiveConversion a BoSS Award.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that Thrive Technologies has been named the first 2010 winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, in recognition of the measurable business benefits which Thrive’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions have delivered to its customers.

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

Thrive Technologies develops and markets web-based demand forecasting and inventory replenishment software that increases profits for distribution intensive companies in high service supply networks by maximizing their inventory performance.  Thrive’s on–demand SaaS system removes the burden on their customers’ IT resources for server procurement, installation, upgrades, and maintenance.  By providing their system as a SaaS solution, Thrive Technologies can help their customers gain control over their inventory much quicker and at a lower cost than traditional systems.

Click here to read more about Thrive Technologies’ award-winning SaaS capabilities.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards or to nominate a company for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that LiveOps has been named the latest 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 launched in January 2009 to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

LiveOps On-Demand Contact Center Platform applies the benefits of cloud computing to the contact center, enabling enterprises to rapidly deploy a scalable contact center infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis to achieve greater operational and cost efficiencies.

Click here to read about LiveOps’ award-winning on-demand contact center capabilities.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that ProfitKeeper has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards.
 
The BoSS Awards program is aimed at bringing attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

ProfitKeeper is a leading provider of SaaS-based financial tools for franchisors, affiliate groups, organizations and their members and franchisees. Its web-based, back-office solutions give users a way to simplify accounting activities while providing real-time graphs and reports for tracking and analyzing profitability.

Click here to read about the business benefits which ProfitKeeper has generated for its customers.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that Pervasive Software (NASDAQ: PVSW) has been named the latest 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 initiated in January 2009 by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Pervasive Software helps companies optimize their data investments through embeddable data management, agile data integration software and by enabling next-generation analytics. Pervasive’s data integration platform accelerates the sharing of information between multiple data stores, applications, and hosted business systems across a broad range of diverse integration scenarios, including pre-configured hosted integration solutions.

Click here to read more about Pervasive Software’s BoSS Award.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that Ultimate Software has been named the latest 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 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Ultimate Software is a provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions. The company’s SaaS-based UltiPro solution helps businesses streamline their human capital management (HCM) operations without relying on internal IT resources, or worrying about hardware procurement, installation, upgrades, and maintenance, while enabling them to better control the most critical HR and payroll functions.

Click here to read about the business benefits generated by Ultimate Software’s customers.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Awards and to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that VFA, Inc. has been named the latest 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 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.
 
VFA is a leading provider of end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and spend management. Organizations in a wide range of industries rely on VFA solutions to help them optimize their capital spend management process.

Click here to read more about the business benefits of VFA’s award-winning SaaS capabilities.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards program or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that Task Performance Group, Inc. has been named the latest 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 is a THINKstrategies initiative aimed at bringing attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.
 
Task Performance Group is a leading provider of business-to-business (B2B) E-commerce automation solutions that facilitates the effective management of collaborative commerce for retail, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, transportation, financial and other industries. The company’s SaaS-based MegaXML solution accepts any type of input and delivers output in any format, making front-end and back-end systems more flexible and adaptable to meet users’ unique requirements. MegaXML improves any EDI business transaction, including purchasing, invoicing, planning, logistics and financials.

Click here to read more about the measurable business benefits of Task Performance Group’s award-winning capabilities.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards or to apply for an award.

THINKstrategies announced today that Cast Iron Systems has been named the latest 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. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Cast Iron provides integration solutions and Integration-as-a-Service which allows providers and consumers of SaaS and cloud computing solutions to more quickly and economically connect their on-demand and on-premise applications and systems. Cast Iron offers its customers unmatched deployment flexibility – they can choose a completely cloud-based integration service called Cast Iron Cloud or on-premise integration appliances (physical or virtual) as an organization’s application ecosystem expands and diversifies.

Click here to read more about Cast Iron’s award winning capabilities.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Award program and apply for an award.

I was invited to participate in a panel discussion regarding cloud computing at the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference in Phoenix this past week.

The event attracted a cross-section of young people seeking to build careers as entrepreneurs, older people hoping to restart their careers as entrepreneurs and current entrepreneurs looking for new ideas to accelerate their success.

The topics ranged from new market opportunities such as eHealth and clean technology to management best practices for building successful businesses.

My panel was moderated by Bob LaLoggia, CEO of StormSource, a Scottsdale-based company which offers an assortment of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, including Appointment-Plus, MessageRover, ZipLine, and Virtual Assistant Manager.

The other panelists represented various perspectives of the cloud computing world– Kimbro Staken, CEO, JumpBox; Dave Rice, CEO, TrueCloud; Marc Chesley, VP of Development and Technology, InfusionSoft; Sam Pietrofeso, Senior VP of Product Development, GoDaddy; and Dave Wallace, Director of Product Management, CRM Solutions, Sage Software.

If you’re keeping score, the panelists offered the following points of view respectively–open source applications; channel opportunities; sales & marketing automation SaaS apps; hosting services; and legacy vendor moving to a SaaS model.

But, what we also represented was a plethora of powerful web-based tools and resources that are increasingly available at incredibly low costs for budding entrepreneurs, as well as established companies, seeking to build their businesses quickly and more effectively.

When I started THINKstrategies in 2001, a couple of months after 9/11, I was able to find a handful of inexpensive online resources to get me started–my web hosting, website design and email marketing services were the key pieces to getting THINKstrategies started.

Creating the SaaS Showplace, as well as the Managed Services Showplace, has enabled me to see many more valuable online services emerge that are perfectly suited to helping people start and grow their businesses. In fact, there are now over 1200 companies offering thousands of SaaS alternatives across 80 different application, industry and enabling technology areas. The Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program has been highlighting the business benefits of these services since January, 2009.

The Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference panel clearly illustrated that there has never been a better time for someone to build and grow their business leveraging today’s cloud computing alternatives. Not only are there an endless array of powerful online applications and resources at their disposal, but there are also limitless opportunities to build cloud-based or cloud-oriented businesses.

However, one of the challenges remains clearly defining the meaning of the ‘cloud’ and cloud computing. This was the first question we tried to answer and continued to be a question that arose from the audience.