More crystal ball gazing...

So it's the start of another year. Indeed, it's the start of a new decade. One thing that we've been reflecting on is how much of the SaaS hype of the noughties has been...well, hype.

This article has some nice insights that steers clear of the "is it good? Short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but" that some analysts provide at this time of the year.

Our experience is that people are consuming SaaS apps at a rate of knots. Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a prime example with sales consistently higher month on month and retention good as well.

Registration

The first and most significant thing about going to the Earnest Morial Conventions Centre and seeing inside is the bland look of the place. I know when I arrived at about 10AM Sunday it is early and there are only a few people about but the place feels drab. Also when talking to regular attendees it seems that there is a low key feel compared to previous years. I’m sure it will pick up Monday when the conference starts in earnest. Sorry about the pun!

Anyway I had a very constructive morning passing the time with the original CEO of 7global Karl Roe. Karl looks after SPLA for Microsoft in the Middle East and Africa which is no mean feat. And has possibly the most stamped passport I’ve ever seen.

Even though it’s early in proceedings I’m starting to meet more people including another ex 7global guy Nick Caw who works in the UC arena again for Microsoft in the UK. 7global currently has 3 ex employees who work for Microsoft the other being Martin Walker who mirrors Karl by looking after SPLA in the UK and is due in later today, good to see so many of our people in prominent positions in Microsoft, this probably reflects the fact that we’ve been in the business for a long time providing ASP services back in 2000 and now still out there with SaaS, Incubation Centre and S + S in 2009, ok advert over. I’m just about to have my first meeting of the week. If it goes well it will mean we have found a great addition to our Hosted Dynamics CRM service....

Well the meeting went well, and I hope to progress things when back from WPC. Now there is jazz band playing at maximum volume only a few yards away, great music, just a bit too LOUD. The ability to meet potential partners and add products to our portfolio is my prime objective for the week and although it’s difficult to mention product specifically you will be unsurprised to know that my focus on Mobility, UC, BI and collaboration.

After spending the day in and out of the conference I think that overall there seems to be a big push on Dynamics and the inevitable Windows 7 hype. I also think that there are going to be some big announcements that will have far reaching consequences to hosters like 7global; wave 14 and all that. Talked to some really great people in the 'meet and greet' sessions form places as far apart as Scotland, Mexico and the Middle East.

The most standout thing in that was we all had similar problems and experiences, it is a small world and this certainly is that case when I talk to people at that WW Hosting Summit. That's it for today it's 20:45 and high time I carried on networking, you know what I mean!

Webinar

We're doing a webinar with Microsoft and Mural entitled 'Coming Of Age with Software-plus-Services' on Thursday 11 March. The dry run is tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how that goes. It should be interesting for ISVs. There's a lot of good stuff coming out of Mural regarding the S +S Incubation Centre Program at the moment. I'm genuinely impressed.

Also, the SaaS/S + S marketplace is so different nowadays to what it was say 3 years ago. Then, it was very difficult to talk about the business benefits as you were too bogged down in the concept. These days the awareness is so much more and you don't have to argue the corner quite so vociferously as you once had to.

I think the main thing is everyone's living on the web now. They're twittering and Facebooking, buying online and booking online. Business applications such as hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or our ISV partners SaaS apps are a logical conclusion.

You can always take me to task on the 11th if you disagree. Or blog it, or twitter it, or send me an email from your hosted mail account...

SaaS Microsite

We've launched our SaaS microsite. It's essentially a forum to promote some of the fantastic applications on demand our ISV partners are delivering to hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. It's essentially something I've been planning for a while and it was a case of seizing the day to get it underway.



As time goes on we'll be looking to expand the site and integrate it with some third part tools to make it a real portal. As a hosting provider committed to SaaS delivery we want to use as many angles as possible to ensure success for our partner. After all, this reflects on us too!

We've got some great partners so having the likes of large ISVs such as C3, KCS, LexisNexis Visualfiles, KCS and Northgate alongside new, smaller ISVs such as Matrix, PureNet, MS2M and Solarvista is a great advert for SaaS.

Any feedback is welcome on the site, as well comments on how we can build on it and improve.