I'm not so sure ... Venturebeat recently reported that there were ZERO (sorry about that pun, it couldn't be avoided for mathematical reasons) IPO's in the US in the first half of calendar 2008, and that M&A activity was at its lowest level in 20 years.

While we like to believe that we are countercyclical or play by different rules here NZ, it's suicidal to forget that we're in a small corner of the global playing field.

My bottom line - entrepreneurs and investors need to put a reality check into that IPO dream for the near future. The best way to succeed is by building a great team, meeting a real market need, and above all running a great business by generating heaps of revenue. IPO's are not part of the script for 2008. For the short term at least, funding will necessarily come from private equity and operational revenue.

When I was working at Xero the percentage of bank accounts that were setup to receive automated feeds was one of the metrics we watched closely and were actively trying to increase - the user experience when your bank transactions just appear ready for reconciliation each day is just SOOOO much better than having to manually upload them yourself.  So, I'm sure the team will be really excited to have all of these banks online now and will be working hard to convince customers to take advantage of this feature.

If you're a Xero customer and you're not using automated feeds, there is some more information about how to set these up in the help.

Reading the comments on that post it would seem that Westpac, the last cab off the rank and over a year or more behind some of their competitors, have decided to charge their customers $25 for the privilege of setting up each account on the feed.  If that's true it's a really dumb decision from them in my opinion.  Any excuse to clip the ticket, it would seem.

No surprise then that Westpac has been consistently last in recent customer satisfaction surveys, with around 30% of their own customers saying they were not satisfied with their overall relationship with the bank in the latest one.  Wow!  Despite this they recently announced a profit after tax for the six months ending 31 March 08 of $244 million (about $1.3 million per day), so Westpac customers can at least be reassured that their setup fees are contributing to a good cause I suppose.

If you're a Xero customer and this fee is enough to convince you to switch banks, then it looks like BNZ would be a good choice as they are currently the only bank providing feed data for all types of accounts, including credit cards.

Related posts:

• Who owns your bank transaction data?, 12 Aug 2007

Five posts from him already over at his new address since his announcement.

Whew! :-)

Nel 1996 il rapper ed MC Mike Shinoda e il chitarrista Brad Delson si diplomarono insieme alla Agoura High School, e con l’amico batterista Rob Bourdon formarono i "SuperXero". In precedenza, Delson e Bourdon avevano suonato per un anno nei Relative Degree. Il primo faceva anche parte del gruppo The Pricks.

Poco dopo Shinoda passò all'Art Center College of Design di Pasadena. All'università Delson divenne amico del bassista Dave Farrell, detto Phoenix. I due furono compagni di stanza e spesso suonavano insieme. Farrell faceva già parte dei Tasty Snax – poi "The Snax" – insieme a Mark Fiore, futuro curatore della videografia dei Linkin Park. All’Art Center College of Design, Shinoda incontrò Joseph Hahn.

Farrell ed Hahn entrarono poi nei SuperXero, il cui nome fu poi accorciato in "Xero". A loro si unì poi il loro primo lead vocalist, Mark Wakefield. Insieme registrarono nel 1997 un demo eponimo con i brani "Fuse", "Reading My Eyes", "Rhinestone" e "Stick N' Move", che però non fu molto stimato dalle case discografiche, e perciò non firmarono alcun contratto. Nel 1998 Wakefield lasciò la band e divenne manager dei Taproot.

Shinoda aprì le audizioni per cercarne il sostituto. Nel frattempo Delson per i suoi studi di comunicazione contattò un rappresentante della Warner Bros. Records, Jeff Blue. Il manager consigliò ai due di assumere Chester Bennington, proveniente da Phoenix e già con i Grey Daze dal 1993 al 1997. I due Xero mandarono a Bennington un nastro con le basi strumentali del gruppo, e il cantante vi registrò proprie parti vocali, il giorno del suo compleanno. A quel punto telefonò a Shinoda e provò la canzone al telefono. Il rapper apprezzò la sua esecuzione e così Bennington entrò nel gruppo.

Poi gli Xero si rimisero alla ricerca di un contratto. Nel frattempo cambiarono nome in Hybrid Theory, perché Xero era già il moniker di un vecchio gruppo australiano, in attività negli anni settanta ed ottanta. Dopo che Farrell li aveva lasciati per dedicarsi di nuovo agli Snax, Delson chiamò come suo sostituto temporaneo il bassista Kyle Christener. Così realizzarono nel 1999 Hybrid Theory EP, di cui furono stampate solo 1000 copie. In quel periodo arrivò al basso Scott Koziol, apparso nel video di "One Step Closer".

Grazie a Jeff Blue e al loro primo EP, gli Hybrid Theory firmarono per la Warner. Tuttavia furono di nuovo forzati a cambiare nome, per problemi di copyright con il gruppo electropop britannico Hybrid. All’inizio erano indecisi tra Clear, Probing Lagers, Platinum Lotus Foundation e Ten P.M. Stocker (quest’ultimo si riferiva al fatto che la band era abituata a registrare il materiale dopo le 10 di sera).

Alla fine Bennington suggerì il moniker Lincoln Park, da una zona di Santa Monica (ora Christine Reed Park) dove passava in auto durante le registrazioni del primo album. Il cantante pensava che ci fossero tante “Lincoln Park” negli Stati Uniti e che perciò dovunque suonassero diventavano, per i loro futuri fans, un gruppo locale. Per pochi mesi usarono il nome Lincoln Park; poi, quando decisero di registrare un proprio dominio Internet, scoprirono che "lincolnpark.com" già esisteva. Poiché non potevano permettersi di acquistarlo, ne accorciarono l’ortografia da "Lincoln" a "Linkin" e comprarono così il dominio "linkinpark.com".

[modifica] Primi anni 2000

Il 24 ottobre 2000 uscì Hybrid Theory, prodotto da Don Gilmore. Dalla sua lista tracce fu scartato solo il rifacimento di "High Voltage", già su Hybrid Theory EP. Molte altre tracce dall’EP dovevano essere rifatte per l’album, ma poi l’idea fu scartata. Hybrid Theory è stato il disco d’esordio più venduto del 21° secolo, con 20 milioni di copie all'attivo^[5].

Il gruppo sostenne il suo primo grande concerto il 17 dicembre 2000, per conto del programma KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. Shinoda scrisse per l’occasione una canzone nuova, "My December". Entrò nell’album natalizio di Kevin & Bean, due dj KROQ. Inoltre fu rilasciata come b-side sul CD del loro singolo di lancio, “One Step Closer”, ma anche in varie edizioni di Hybrid Theory.

All’inizio del 2001 Farrell tornò nei Linkin Park ed uscì il loro secondo singolo, "Crawling". Poi partirono per l’Ozzfest, insieme a Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot e Black Label Society. A metà del 2001 la band rilasciò come singolo "In the End", la loro canzone più famosa e tra le più di successo di quell’anno. Il suo video fu diretto da Nathan "Karma" Cox e dal dj Joseph Hahn, e mostrava i Linkin su una statua circondata da un ambiente surreale. Premiato come miglior video rock agli MTV Video Music Awards del 2002, si avvaleva molto della computer graphic.

Il 21 novembre 2001 uscì il loro primo DVD, Frat Party at the Pankake Festival, con i primi video del gruppo e un documentario del tour promozionale per Hybrid Theory. In alcuni file potevano anche assistere a video nascosti: in uno di questi era suonata nel 1999 la prima versione di "A Place For My Head", intitolata "Esaul". Nello stesso mese la loro amica Jessica Bardas li aiutò a fondare il fan club ufficiale Linkin Park Underground. I suoi membri ricevono ogni anno (ma solo ad iscrizione rinnovata) una confezione contenente una t-shirt, un CD e vari gadget, tra cui plettri di chitarra, adesivi e poster. All’epoca rieditarono per LPU Hybrid Theory EP, con un nuovo artwork.

All’inizio del 2002 la band avviò il tour Projekt Revolution. Alla sua prima tappa parteciparono Adema, Cypress Hill, Apex Theory e DJ Z-Trip. Collaborarono anche con gli X-Ecutioners, per la canzone "It's Goin' Down". Durante il lunghissimo tour decisero di registrare un nuovo album. Perciò portarono la maggior parte degli strumenti sul tourbus e Shinoda decise di produrre una raccolta di remix. All’inizio voleva solo remixare due canzoni per un EP ma, incoraggiato da Hahn e Delson, alla fine optò per un album con 20 tracce. Così il 30 luglio 2002 uscì Reanimation, contenente i remix di "My December", "High Voltage" e di tutti i brani da Hybrid Theory. Dalla sua lista tracce Shinoda scartò tre rifacimenti di "Points of Authority", "By Myself" e "My December", rispettivamente di Crystal Method, Marilyn Manson e Team Sleep. All’album lavorarono anche Motion Man, Kutmasta Kurt, Chali 2na dei Jurassic 5, Stephen Richards dei Taproot, Kelli Ali degli Sneaker Pimps, Aaron Lewis degli Staind, gli Humble Brothers, Jonathan Davis dei Korn, Aceyalone, Pharaohe Monch, gli X-Ecutioners, Black Thought e Jay Gordon degli Orgy. Quest’ultimo realizzò "Pts.of.Athrty" (suo remix di "Points of Authority"), unico singolo estratto da Reanimation. Il video per "Pts.of.Athrty", girato da Joseph Hahn, venne realizzato completamente in computer graphic e presentava una fazione di alieni in guerra con una di robot.

In quel periodo il singolo “Crawling” vinse un Grammy, come Best Hard Rock Performance. Inoltre, agli MTV Europe Music Awards del 2002, i Linkin Park furono premiati per la prima volta come "Miglior Gruppo Rock".

A novembre uscì LPUnderground 2.0. L’EP fu rilasciato insieme alla seconda confezione del fan club, e conteneva il remix di "Points of Authority" dei Crystal Method e gli inediti "Dedicated" (registrato nel 1999) ed "A.06" (demo strumentale di 50 secondi, che in origine doveva far parte di Meteora).

[modifica] Meteora, Live In Texas, Collision Course

Già a metà del 2002 avevano registrato canzoni nuove, per un secondo album in studio. Il suo titolo fu mantenuto segreto fino a dicembre. Allora dissero di essersi ispirati a Meteora, una serie di monasteri su formazioni rocciose in Grecia, di cui vennero a sapere su una rivista di viaggi. "Un posto molto mitico e spirituale," disse Delson, "guardando quelle foto abbiamo avuto l’ispirazione, comprendendo quanto fosse epico. Credo che qualche nostro fan non abbia ancora visto le foto quando ha sentito il nome Meteora, e credo che ora comprenderanno il perché di quel nome. Siamo convinti che quel nome descriva in modo adeguato le emozioni che abbiamo provato a creare con questo nuovo disco."^[6]. Il suo primo singolo, "Somewhere I Belong", fu pubblicato tra buoni consensi nel febbraio del 2003; fu accompagnato da un clip diretto da Joseph Hahn, e premiato come miglior video rock agli MTV Video Music Awards dello stesso anno. Il 25 marzo uscì Meteora, prodotto anch'esso da Don Gilmore, che nella prima settimana vendette 810.000 copie e debuttò al primo posto di Billboard. Ad oggi ha venduto circa 11 milioni di copie, di cui oltre la metà nei soli Stati Uniti. Forti delle vendite del loro secondo lavoro in studio, furono premiati come "Miglior Gruppo Rock" anche ai World Music Awards di quell'anno.

In seguito la band partì per la seconda tappa di Projekt Revolution, insieme a Blindside, Mudvayne ed Xzibit. Finito il tour, uscì il secondo singolo "Faint", accompagnato da un video diretto da Mark Romanek. In estate partirono per il Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003, insieme a Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Deftones e Mudvayne. In Gran Bretagna si esibirono anche al Reading Festival insieme ai blink-182, suonando davanti a 65.000 fans (vi hanno partecipato anche Metallica, System of a Down, Blur ed AFI).

Joseph Hahn girò a Praga i video per i singoli "Numb" e "From the Inside". Il primo fu rilasciato nell’autunno del 2003, il secondo nel 2004. Bennington si ammalò prima che il video per "Numb" fosse completato, così il resto fu girato in una chiesa di Los Angeles, dove attualmente ha sede il gruppo.

Il 18 novembre 2003 i Linkin Park pubblicarono il CD/DVD Live in Texas. Conteneva video e brani delle loro tappe per il Summer Sanitarium, ad Houston e Dallas. Tre giorni dopo uscirono la terza confezione di LPU e LPUnderground 3.0, con cinque tracce escluse da Live in Texas. A dicembre suonarono di nuovo al concerto KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. Tra le 17 canzoni dal vivo vi era anche "One Step Closer", eseguita insieme a Sonny Sandoval dei P.O.D..

Nei primi mesi del 2004 prese il via il "Meteora World Tour", a cui si associarono anche P.O.D., Hoobastank e Story of the Year. Nel frattempo uscì il video per "From the Inside". Poi uscì un altro singolo, "Breaking the Habit", diretto da Kazuto Nakazawa e Joseph Hahn e disegnato in stile anime. Premiato come migliore scelta dello spettatore agli MTV Video Music Awards del 2004, il video mostrava l’anima di Bennington che viaggiava per un vecchio palazzo e s’imbatteva in varie persone che cercavano di abbandonare i loro vizi (come nel tema della canzone). Prima che uscisse come singolo "Breaking the Habit", "Lying From You" era stato già mandato in sola trasmissione radiofonica.

I Linkin Park aprirono anche la terza edizione di Projekt Revolution. Si esibirono in due sezioni chiamate Revolution Village. In quell’occasione usarono un design simile a quelli per Ozzfest e Vans Warped Tour. Vi parteciparono nella prima fase Korn, Snoop Dogg, The Used, Less Than Jake, e poi Ghostface, Funeral for a Friend, M.O.P. e Downset. Anche DJ Z-Trip si unì al tour, per trattenere il pubblico da una sezione all’altra. Durante le sessioni hip hop ballò Ivan the Urban Action Figure. Il Revolution Village comprendeva sale giochi, parchi per lo skateboard, gabbie da lotta e zone per remix. Il tour è stato il più di successo di quell’anno.

Agli MTV Europe Music Awards del 2004, furono di nuovo premiati come "Miglior Gruppo Rock".

Il 21 novembre 2004 uscì la quarta confezione LPU. In LPUnderground 4.0 vi erano anche due inediti, la strumentale "Sold My Soul to Yo Mama" e "Standing in the Middle", collaborazione con Motion Man registrata nel 2001 e che in origine doveva far parte di Reanimation.

Alla fine del 2004 il gruppo annunciò di aver iniziato a collaborare con Jay-Z. Per conto di MTV realizzarono insieme Collision Course, uscito il 30 novembre e contenente mash-up di alcune loro canzoni. L'EP debuttò al primo posto di Billboard, e il suo singolo "Numb/Encore" rimase nelle classifiche per sei mesi di seguito.

Cyfrowy wielofunkcyjny system zapewnia kopiowanie, drukowanie, skanowanie i faksowanie pierwszej klasy. Przy 30 stronach na minutę długi czas oczekiwania należy do przeszłości. Co więcej, to niesamowicie wielofunkcyjny system posiada cały szereg innych funkcji - co sprawia, że znajdzie zastosowanie także w większych środowiskach biurowych. Wykonuje zadania rzetelnie, sprawnie i kompetentnie.

więcej na kopiarki utax

Frustrado por los altos costos de la fotografía, el estudiante de leyes Chester Carlson inventó un proceso basado en la energía electrostática, que permitía copiar las palabras de una página a otra en minutos. En 1942 patentó su invención con el nombre de fotografía eléctrica, pero le tomó 20 años encontrar una empresa interesada en ella (IBM rechazó la propuesta)

Fue Haloid Company-más tarde Xero Corporation, quien finalmente la llevó al mercado con gran éxito.

P.M.(ed. continental  2005)

O sucesso se foi, pena que eles nao são mulheres - frutas, pelo menos teriam a chance de ganhar um dinheirinho em revistas masculinas.

P.S.: Cadê as mães desses garotos?

Personally I like the positive approach that NBR took on this headline which shows their attitude towards fostering business success in New Zealand, unlike Fairfax. Maybe they just don't like new things or its founder Rod Dury ... who knows? I know that from now on I'll be checking my NBR feeds long before any from stuff.co.nz because I like to be in a positive frame of mind.

Technically, this is true, but its also meaningless. I think that a true entrepreneur is someone who is able to see a pain that is shared by a lot of people, then identify and deliver a solution to that pain. Entrepreneurs are motivated by creating value and serving people.

Most companies start off being entrepreneurial, but plenty gradually become the opposite - exploitational. Exploitational businesses (and people) are interested in their own gain above their customers. They are looking to make money without necessarily creating value and without serving people.

I've seen some companies where the culture was exploitational (and culture always comes from the top) and this came through in every facet; the way staff were treated, the way sales were made, the way priorities were set, the way customers and suppliers were treated. No value was created - it was only taken.

Xero is a good example of a company that is led by an entrepreneur and has a culture of entrepreneurialism. Everyone at Xero, whether they're building the software, selling it or providing service (or most likely all three) are all entrepreneurs in the sense that we're motivated to find, solve and deliver solutions to the pain that small businesses and small business owners experience today.

We know that we can't create value for our customers and shareholders until we deliver innovative software and exceptional service and actually resolve that pain. Its a pleasure to be part of a team that is so motivated by creating value for the ~25% of the work force whose life revolves around their business.

BTW: Xero are currently hiring.

Statistics

First let’s look at the statistics.  These are from 2H 2007 and I believe highlight the enormous APac SaaS opportunity as compared to Europe and the America’s

* Have a look at the great flash animation on the NexGen homepage for a great interactive demonstration of this

The statistics say it all.  The Asian market will grow at a faster CAGR, using faster Internet growth supply a faster growing economy, of more people and soon to be bigger economy than both the US and the EU.

One thing we do share with our European cousins is our interest in using WiMAX broadband to reach the Asian growing SaaS user base.  According to Paul Budde Communications based on Point Topic data “WiMAX will make up 60% of the wireless broadband market by 2008…. With Asia and Central and Eastern Europe the two hottest markets”, however the Asian region will lead even Europe.  In-Stat forecast that the Asia-Pacific market will account for "45% of the world’s total WiMAX user base by 2009, reaching 3.8 million.”

Key differences between markets

1. SaaS penetration in Asia is currently 18-24 months behind North America, and approximately 6-12 months behind EMEA.
2. Less sunk cost in legacy business systems means quicker penetration gains than both EMEA and North America (but similar to Eastern Europe).
3. Less sunk cost in legacy infrastructure is means quicker penetration gains than both EMEA and North America, (but similar to Eastern Europe)
4. Accounting practices in regards to depreciation of intangible assets can make SaaS more  attractive in some countries.

Customer Segments

Is there a difference between specific market segment’s?  Large companies are taking on SaaS in much the same way as their European and US counterparts, albeit slightly behind time-wise.  Asia is special however, in that it’s small businesses are the drivers of it’s new booming economy, entrepreneurialism is ‘built-in’ to many cultures here, and all of these SME’s need will need to take the next step in processes soon.  Government organisations know this too and some, like the Singaporean Government, are actively looking towards SaaS as a smart next step for their countries SME’s.  The industry is better set to take advantage of this process investment than in any other market.

Geos & Applications

CRM & Web conferencing were approx. 80% of Asia Pacific SaaS revenues in 2005, and were still probably 60% in 2007.  In 2005 over 1/3 of this was derived from the Australian market were less than 1% of people in the region live.  China, Korea, India and Singapore are the other leading markets in the region, however I believe that Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia & Indonesia will outstrip growth in these regions in the next couple of years.

The Alibaba group , and their SaaS line Alisoft are a great example of China’s own direction (Alibaba run Yahoo’s presence in China) and representative of other parts of Asia like India. Indo China is caught in the middle of these and US/European services whilst Australia does now, and will continue to lean as normal towards US and European offerings, at least initially.

The Ecosystem

A SaaS ecosystem is definitely developing in the region, but it is still fledgling and not yet understood or accepted either by customers or the IT industry.  Those that can last out the winter could have a great summer.  Perception and mainstream acceptance are still the biggest retarder to the uptake.

Asia Pacific has already bred it’s own SaaS platforms (Morph ), Business Exchanges (Alibaba ),  Channels (NewLease and BlueArc ) and of course start-up ISV’s, (thinkfree which has strong Korean roots, AliSoft in China, Just login & Cynapse in SE Asia, and Enovation,   SaaSu and Xero in Australasia)

Much of the SaaS revenue in the Region is being derived from North American based ISV’s but the market is still only at early stages of maturity, is diversity, and has unique requirements such that local and international firm who position themselves and adjust to the market still have a good chance of being amongst the big winners.  Like for Europe, language is a barrier to expansion of Asian ISV’s. 

Crossing the Chasm

Software as a Service in Asia will outstrip even the US and Europe for growth, and potentially eventually as a market.  All of the feedback I get puts SaaS as a ‘when’ not an ‘if’, however perception and mainstream acceptance are still the biggest retarder to the uptake.

How I gather this information

I read and contribute to the SaaS-AsiaPacific.com website which is a commity for the SaaS industry, users and commentators in the Asia PAcific Region.  As a director at NexGen, an Asia Pacific SaaS enabler and ‘hub’, I travel to many Asian and world-wide conferences and speak to many enterprise interested in working in thismarket.  I suggest Springboard research an excellent source of APac SaaS Information. 

* I also post versions of relevant AsiaPacific articles from this this blog on the SaaS Asia Pacific Community site.

Xero have just released their 19th update within the last 12 months and its only getting better and better.

To make it even easier, Xero will also get you up and running from your existing accounting system for $NZ199, so now's a perfect time to get setup in time for the new financial year.

Shameless Xero advertising follows ...

One of the things I've focused on is establishing a measurement culture and making sure we're making product decisions for the right reasons. It's great to see these things starting to happen.

I've enjoyed being able to help shape a new company as it moves from startup to becoming established in the market.

But, now it's time for something different ...

Next week I'm in the US for ETech. I've kept the week after that free, so hopefully I'll meet some interesting people over there who will help me fill those days. If you're going to be there please feel free to drop me an email.

After that I'm planning to spread my time around a few different things, including working with some of the other companies I’ve invested in. I'll look forward to writing some more about those here over the next few months.

So, exciting times!

At my company, NexGen, SaaS’s biggest Asia Pacific cheerleader, we have always endeavoured to ‘eat our own dog food’, and run an ASE. We succeed - almost.

As a start-up our requirements were clear.  We needed solutions that were quick to rollout, easily managed; offered flexible access, low upfront costs, and the ability to scale with our growth.  Software as a Service solutions offered each of these.  We deliberately went out to be as realistic as posible, building up our platform as if we were a normal non SaaS aligned start-up and based only on our internal requirements.  We did this to better understand the end customer and the industry.

The first step was finding suitable applications.  Part of our vision at NexGen is to evangelise Software as a Service in and for the Asia Pacific region so we are in a good position to know the offerings available but for someone outside of the industry it is still too much of an effort to find and test all the applications we required.  The SaaS community, including NexGen in the Asia Pacific region and the new channels that are emerging hope to improve this soon.  We utilised sources like Tanooma, SaaS Showplace, IBM’s SaaSpace and Neobinaries

We built our infrastructure carefully starting with the essentials, Office Productivity (MS Office), Networking (Linked In ), EmailSales Management (SalesForce), Document Management (Local storage), Telephony (desk Mobiles/Cells), Faxing (a fax machine), and basic website hosting (local web host).
Then in came the manual replacements - advanced Telephony (Alianza), advanced Banking (upgraded banking service), Fax Management (efax ); and more functionality advanced Document Management (Xythos On Demand), advanced web hosting, advanced Email and Calendaring (Hosted Exchange), Blog + Wiki (Hosted SharePoint) and Web Meetings (GoToMeeting ).
Finally we implemented Systems Management (TriActive ), Email Marketing (iContact), collaborative office productivity (Google Apps & Buzzword – see my article SaaS in the Office ), and mind mapping (bubbl.us).
Still to come are Business Intelligence (Enovation – see SaaS Business Intelligence), Billing (Aria ), advanced Business Networking (Xeequa ), and a Knowledge Base (Hosted SharePoint).  To give a simple user experience all applications are brought together in our Intranet (Hosted SharePoint). (local web host),

Is Internet access a problem? No, there is MORE access than the in-office alternative. I have access to our SaaS platform in our offices, as well as hotels, airports, and cafes, and I don’t require a VPN nor suffer from the slower access you normally experience with one.  It will get even easier with the rollout of services like WiMAX in Asia and the Pacific .

 What about support?  Believe it or not but we have LESS user incidents on our All SaaS platform than on an equivalent internal platform, due mainly to the focus on usable user interfaces and on applications doing one thing and doing it well.  Of the incidents we have had, most of the problems have been able to be solved very simply by either internal technical team members or even by the user themselves, mainly because of a high availability and relevance of self support options such as FAQ’s, training video’s, online manuals and built in hints and tips.  The main area of inconvenience has been in the few incidents that have required support by the vendor.  Though we have found SaaS support to be generally of a high standard, multiple vendors mean multiple support teams rather than one internal IT team, absence of advice in the context of our company, and a slower pace to action.   This suggests that there is space in the SaaS Ecosystem for outsourcers, MSP’s and aggregators to pull together multiple offerings and provide company contextual support and advice.

Is there a SaaS solution for everything?  We found suitable solutions for everything except Accounting and offline office productivity .  Being based in Singapore brings many advantages but it also brings specific accounting rules and a small market that has not yet been reached by a product focussed at small businesses – hopefully soon.
Also desktop based Office Productivity and email/calendaring are required when offline, however the offline web via Firefox 3, Adobe AIR, and Google gears will soon fill this gap (refer to my article "SaaS in the Office – Web based Office Productivity ”)

What is the overall experience? We have been running most of our All SaaS platform for the better part of a year and our experience has been almost unanimously good.  Of most importance to our business is that we have more functions available more often, and kept to a higher standard of availability than if we had in-sourced our infrastructure.  Our COO is effectively our entire IT department, but we still have hundreds of on-call systems experts to help us.  And most importantly of all, process implementation and change is more business driven, not technology driven.  See a full list of benefits in the accompanying All SaaS Enterprise (ASE) - the Applications and Analysis article.

 What would I do differently next time?  We are very happy with our infrastructure but if ‘next time’ the Web based Office Productivity area is solved, and there are Software as a Service Aggregators who can provide support in the context of our company, then we would take advantage of these.

See a full list of the SaaS offerings, benefits, hassles, worries see the accompanying All SaaS Enterprise (ASE) - the Applications and Analysis.

* I also post versions of relevant AsiaPacific articles from this this blog on the SaaS Asia Pacific Community site.

SaaS offerings 

We chose applications based on our requirements, not SaaS ideology.  The decisions we made are by category of application are :

Accounting – QuickBooks

Try as we might we have not yet found a suitable SaaS accounting solution that suits our company – a Singapore based start-up with a QuickBooks experienced accounting team - Quickbooks have a SaaS application but it is only availabale for the US.  There are many good solutions out there, including some Asia Pacific SaaS solutions (SaaSu , Xero , and myworkspace), just none right for our situation.

Banking – CitiBank

Our executive team uses our banks SaaS account management application which utilises a dongle to create, approve and enquire on transactions amongst other things.  One of the best examples of SaaS, it is easy to use and enormously valuable in that it enables even the most mobile executive to keep financial control all over the world at any time of the day.

Billing – Aria
Aria provides full customer billing lifecycle management.

Blog – Wordpress , and managed Sharepoint
Both offerings provide a good quality blog as part of wider function sets.

Business Performance management / Business Intelligence – Enovation
Enovation provides an excellent easy to use and quick to value SaaS BPM offering.

Document Management – Xythos On Demand, Local storage, and Local Backup
Xythos provides a full document management solution, including online storage and access control, version control etc.  We utilise the solution only to half of its full extent but it still one of the most valuable for our very mobile organisation.  It ha a web absed file amanger interface but also require a local client for synchronisation of files onto a PC.

Email and Calendaring - Hosted Microsoft Exchange
We looked at Zimbra, Google apps and other solutions but a Hosted Exchange solution won for three reasons – it had the breadth of functionality we required, our users were comfortable and experienced in using it, and we could not find suitable Zimbra hosters in region.  This is an area we will continue to review as there are many exciting things happening here.

Email Marketing – iContact
Email marketing is an important function for us to keep in touch with our networks.  iContact does the job cleanly and well with an easy to use interface. We also looked at ConstantContact which was also a good quality product.

Fax Management - efax & physical fax machines
Despite the prevalence of email, faxes are still an important communication method.  With a mobile workforce a single location specific solution was not tenable for quick communication.  E-Fax allows us to receive and send faxes as if we were in the office when we are anywhere in the world.  We still have physical fax  machines but these are rarely used.

Intranet – Hosted Microsoft SharePoint
Sharepoint is not without its issues but it is still a good intranet solution.  The hosted model and it’s availability in combination with hosted exchange made this the best intranet choice for our business.

Mind Mapping - bubbl.us
Mind Mapping is an excellent tool – I encourage everyone to add it to their office communications practices.  It is not as fully featured as some of its on computer rivals but it is good enough and makes sharing and collaborating on mind maps extremely easy.

Networking - Xeequa & Linked-in
Networking is an essential function for a SaaS hub like NexGen.  Linked-In is a staple personal networking and relationship management solution.  Xeequa is for both individuals and their companies.  It adds company to company relationships and some advanced ways to interact.

Office Productivity – MS Office (locally installed), Google Apps , Wiki, Buzzword
Unfortunately I can’t say we are all SaaS here.  We use a mixture of solutions to match the requirement of the situation.  For one internal project we use only Google Apps, we communicate collaborative group information via a wiki, and we use Buzzword where it makes sense, but the main product of use is MS office.  This is mainly because this way of working is accepted by our staff and always accessible.  There are however many areas in Office productivity that SaaS can improve on – see my SaaS Office Productivity article for my thoughts here.

Sales Management – SalesForce
Being a SaaS hub keeping track of our relationships and opportunities is core to our business so this was one of the most important pieces of our infrastructure solution.  We also looked at entellium and hosted Suger CRM.

Systems Management – TriActive
A mobile workforce means, until our SaaS infrastructure is completely clientless, mobile computers and the requirement to manage them.  With some Systems Management experience of my own I really appreciate the value a SaaS model brings to this area.  Systems Management was formally a heavy lifting area with full time staff needed to install and maintain a local system.  With TriActive you get all the functionality you need with none of this hassle.

Unified Communications / Telephony – Alianza
Our team is very mobile in both the Asia Pacific region and in the U.S. which can mean expensive phone bills.  It also means that they could be hard to get hold of.  When I first heard of VoIP as a SaaS product it took me a while to appreciate that business telephony does not have to be a special case and can be viewed as another business system like the rest of our platform.  Amongst many other benefits, our SaaS based VoIP and IP-PBX solution from Alianza means that we have the same number wherever we are via either deskphone or softphone, and that our team can all change their call forwarding via an easy web interface

Web Meetings – GoToMeeting
Web meetings save us an enormous amount of time and money and can also be our partners preference in many situations.  This is an essential piece of infrastructure and GoToMeeting is the one we rate to be the most intuitive solution by a good margin.

Website – Externally Hosted
This is a no brainer but it is important to note that it is still SaaS in a broad sense, and one of the earliest forms.  You could host your website internally if you wanted to but unless there are some big reasons to do that why would you?

Wiki – Xythos , Hosted Microsoft SharePoint
Both offerings provide a good quality blog as part of wider function sets.

Benefits, Hassles and still to be decided

From our experience we have been able to compile a list of benefits of our All SaaS platform, they are :

• Interface is business focussed, not geek focussed - easy setup
• Up and running straight away
• Supports and enables an independent workforce
• Lower costs
• Less hassle
• Less downtime
• More uptime – best quality backups for quicker recovery (we have not lost one byte of data yet)
• More access (when in the office, travelling with laptop and using a foreign device)
• Running better apps than we could by ourselves (some examples are systems management, business intelligence, location independent VoIP, billing)
• Enormous upfront cost reduction
• Change is a business decision, not a technology decision
• No sleepless nights worrying about backup and stability
• New features with no upgrade pain
• Consistent cost - our systems are listed under business infrastructure on our P&L
• We know the cost of doing business every month right in front of me
• Single access point for all applications in security enabled internet accessible intranet
• Also gives independent end users control - SaaS apps are generally accessible and usable
• No application conflict worries

We also have been able to put together a list of hassles

• Dealing with many different vendors rather than one it team
• Support
  • Though mostly good, is unable to advise in the context of our company
  • For one product in particular remote support has been an issue, as opposed to having internal it dept.  For other apps it has been fine to have email alone.
  • Support is slower Finding suitable SaaS solutions for our business

And what else should be considered for your organisation :

• Internal technical resources bring product knowledge with them
• Options to suit all organisation types (i.e. we couldn’t get an adequate accounting package for a Singapore small business)
• SaaS doesn’t solve everything – solution introduction still requires co-ordination, but for user experience, not installation
• The effect of other support & training Mechanisms - On line scalable customer care - FAQ's, Discussion boards, online support desk, pre recorded video's, built-in helpdesks.
• How does the offering facilitate switching providers?
• Am I choosing the best product?

Are any services are deviceclient dependent?

Two applications (Offline Office Productivity, and Accounting) require local installs. Six applications require a local client installed on the users device for full functionality.  Only one is very specific device dependant (Unified Communications).

 The options available to run an All SaaS Enterprise are both varied and rich but there are some small holes in our ability to find the right business software solutions for every requirement.  There is a long list of benefits that far outweigh the hassles.  Though there are still some questions to be answered the SaaS industry is hard at work on them.  Best of all we have found both an excellent solution for our business, and all the better that it is SaaS.

Also have a look at another companies All SaaS Enterprise enterprise experience.

* I also post versions of relevant AsiaPacific articles from this this blog on the SaaS Asia Pacific Community site.