Category Archives: Software as a service

ERP, NetSuite, News & Analysis, Oracle, SAP, Scott Scherr, Software as a service, Ultimate Software, Zach Nelson

Ultimate Software, NetSuite link HCM and ERP clouds

Ultimate Software and NetSuite are integrating their HCM and ERP services

Ultimate Software and NetSuite are integrating their HCM and ERP services

Ultimate Software, a provider of cloud-based human capital management services has inked a deal with NetSuite, a vendor of ERP cloud services, which will see the two companies integrate their software.

The two companies will integrate the UltiPro HCM solution and NetSuite’s ERP suite, which will enable joint customers to manage a broader chunk of their business lifecycles –financials, supply chain, CRM, payroll, HR, and talent management.

“By connecting UltiPro’s rich HR, talent, and payroll capabilities to NetSuite’s suite of ERP applications, Ultimate and NetSuite offer businesses the ability to manage their entire spectrum of business technology needs through two of the most trusted cloud vendors in the world—while enjoying industry-leading functionality, scalability, and configurability—without requiring point solutions for different business applications,” said Scott Scherr, chief executive officer of Ultimate.

“Not only are both our solutions leaders in cloud business technology, but our commitment to culture and service to customers is highly aligned.  We’re excited to bring this partnership to the market,” Scherr said.

Zach Nelson, chief executive officer of NetSuite said: “The combination of Ultimate’s robust HCM functionality together with NetSuite’s system of record for core operational processes provides our customers with a tightly integrated solution to run the core aspects of their business.”

The move suggests cloud ERP vendors are looking to double down on beating the large incumbents at their own game. The SAPs and Oracles of the world have long found that combining ERP and HR platforms make them more attractive to some large enterprises, so any move to bring end-to-end integration of these services in the cloud space will likely be welcome news to born-in-the-cloud firms that are also keen on de-risking their supply chains with multiple vendors.

FinancialForce, Funding, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, VC

FinancialForce raises $110m to grow Salesforce-based ERP

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce, a provider of a Salesforce-based ERP and HR services has raised $110m in a round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) with participation from Salesforce’s investment arm, Salesforce Ventures. The company said it will use the funds to expand sales, marketing and development.

The latest funding round comes less than a year after the company scored $50m from Advent International.

“Our goal has always been to transform the ERP market in the same way that Salesforce has for CRM. As our growth indicates, the industry is responding to our customer-centric approach to ERP where our apps, built natively to run alongside the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, help businesses create meaningful relationships with customers and employees to grow their top and bottom lines,” said Jeremy Roche, chief executive officer and president, FinancialForce.com.

“With TCV and Salesforce Venture’s contributions, FinancialForce.com can continue our rapid rate of growth and become the cloud ERP choice for all forward-thinking companies,” Roche added.

The company has reported strong growth over the past couple of years, no doubt bolstered by the continued success Salesforce seems to be realising.

FinancialForce said 2014 was its “banner year” for the firm, reporting 91 per cent annual subscription run rate growth and $50m in revenue. It also increased its global headcount by more than 80 per cent, from 250 employees at the end of 2013 to more than 450 at the end of 2014. The company said it currently has more than 500 employees spread across six global offices.

The funding round speaks to what now seems to have become an entrenched industry dynamic – where younger, more nimble cloud-native startups like NetSuite and FinancialForce are starting to overtake large IT incumbents, particularly in areas where software is traditionally bulky and relies heavily on tight integration (i.e. ERP). Salesforce, the platform upon which FinancialForce is based, recently announced full fiscal year 2015 revenue hitting $5.37bn – no small sum by any stretch of the imagination.

Delve, Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Office, Satya Nadella, Software as a service, Vendor

Microsoft reveals Office 2016, Skype for Business, Azure IoT services

Microsoft chief exec Satya Nadella previewed a number of new services at Convergence this week

Microsoft chief exec Satya Nadella previewed a number of new services at Convergence this week

Microsoft revealed a slew of new cloud offerings and updates to its productivity offerings at the company’s annual Convergence conference this week, including a developer and enterprise preview of Office 2016, a re-branded Microsoft Lync (Skype for Business), and an Azure-based suite of Internet of Things services.

The company was keen to show off Office 2016, which will be available later this year and ship with a few new services – notably Office Delve, which uses machine learning algorithms to surface corporate Office 265 documents and files that are relevant to specific users in a cloud-based collaboration environment.

“You know how Facebook has a newsfeed? Think of this as your work newsfeed,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “It’s about enabling anyone in the organisation to find useful information without having corporate hierarchies get in the way.”

Microsoft also announced the general availability of PowerBI, it’s analytics and dashboarding platform, which will come with new connectors for Google Analytics, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, Zuora, Acumatica and Twilio – with connections for other analytics platforms coming in the near future.

Microsoft Lync, the company’s enterprise collaboration and communications platform, has been re-branded to Skype for Business and been given a noticeable facelift.

The company also unified its Azure-based analytics and machine learning offerings into what Microsoft is calling the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite. The suite combines Azure Stream Analytics and Azure ML (machine learning) and is being aimed at developers creating real-time data services.

“Devices will come and go. But the most interesting thing is the data being collected,” Nadella said, adding that the rapid increase in the volume and velocity of data requires better and more unified tools for developers.

“We’re going to have something like 26 billion internet-connected devices and 44 zettabytes of data in the cloud by 2019,” Nadella said. “How do we make sure that the ability to have access to that data, the ability to act on the insight – those small patterns that, we as humans, recognise in data? The real power comes from our ability to act on those insights.”

Advertising, Business Processes, Collaboration, Content marketing, Customer Relationship Management, Document Management, Social, Software as a service, Workflow

Use a Shared Technology Platform to Reorganize your Digital Media Activities

“Digital marketing” is now a familiar term across age groups spending time on online and mobile interfaces. The digital media space can no longer be ignored and companies in varying fields, from pharmaceutical to telecom have started to take it seriously, and invest in it for the long term.

Large companies would need a strong presence in the digital arena. This means that many stakeholders would be involved in handling different kinds of digital media. For example, one agency might be in charge of the website creation and social media content, while another might handle email campaigns and banner ads. Add the technology service provider to this mix, and you could be headed for confusion. It is prudent to address this situation before it gets out of hand.

To implement a collaborative platform for one of its clients in business information services, HCL Tech used the following main 7 components:

Shared Technology Platform

The platform that was implemented had to be common across all the digital agencies and the technology service provider. It would form the foundation of the solution, and had to be capable enough to handle all the common assets, activities and reporting mechanisms.

Common Understanding of Objectives

The big picture is very important in such a collaborative scenario, and each digital agency and technology provider should have an idea of the objective to be achieved. This would help them understand the importance of their individual responsibilities clearly.

Definition of Roles

When multiple stakeholders are involved, the interfaces between them play an important role. This means that a single point of contact should be defined in each digital agency, as well as at the technology service provider and at the client’s end. The team structure within each team should also be uniformly and clearly defined, including special role definitions such as BIS digitization services.

Clear Definition of Responsibilities

In most situations, the final accountability might lie with the client’s business team, but it is important to define a responsibility matrix for all the stakeholders involved. This would help to identify the points of success, as well as to pinpoint any issues at an early stage.

Training Requirements

It is essential that the service provider provides the required training about the platform to the digital agencies, and also is available for guidance after the participants have started using it. Some of the aspects to be covered by the training include features of the platform, storage and access of digital assets, managing information, workflows and reporting mechanisms.

What are Workflows?

A common platform is effective only if used in a collaborative and uniform manner by all the stakeholders. The creation and review of workflows need to be performed by the end users of the platform from the client’s team, but in close discussion with the digital agencies.

Why are Reporting Mechanisms Important?

Reporting is an important step for tracking progress, and requires a common template to be established for use by all agencies.

Why are Reporting Mechanisms Important?

Reporting is an important step for tracking progress, and requires a common template to be established for use by all agencies.

Opting for a shared technology platform at an early stage of digital marketing would improve efficiency and brand image. It would also ensure that your digital marketing campaigns reach the required audience within an optimal period of time.

To know more about the topic please refer to the whitepaper written by HCL Technologies

applications, APS, APS Partners, Cloud Services, Hosting, Parallels Summit, Software as a service

Just providing best- of – breed is no longer good enough

By John Zanni, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Parallels

 

In this ever changing cloud environment, service providers are telling us that whenever they think they have a handle on what SMBs want, SMBs indicate their “wants” are expanding. What this means is that service providers cannot linger on what was a key service last year. SMBs are constantly trying to grow their business and furthering their understanding of their customers, so as their customers branch out into new territories whether accounting, health care, entertainment, retail (you get the picture), SMBs will look to service providers to be nimble enough to accommodate those developments with cloud offerings they can use – and use with ease. In fact, best-of-breed is no longer as relevant or as meaningful as are specificity and ease of use.

 

Luckily for everyone, need generates innovation and development. There is a burgeoning of cloud services applications for a world of vertical markets, and many SMBs are looking for the application that specifically serves their needs rather than the most well-known or most often used applications.

 

From open source applications to complex solutions, through Application Packaging Standards, ISVs can create any applications that are needed or can be invented. (You can learn more about APS at appstandards.org.) Of note, this is an open standard, and Parallels does not need to approve an application for it to become available through APS.

 

There are a number of examples of such offerings in the Parallels APS catalogue, including:

  • ·         MoySklad – a Russian business that produces a contact resource management and accounting service
  • ·         SpamExperts – an Anti-virus/anti-spam/archiving solution very popular throughout Europe
  • ·         BackupAgent – produces backup services for hosters and service providers and is popular in Europe and Asia.

 

Service Providers have access to these cloud services and applications and can easily enable them on Parallels Plesk Panel or Parallels Automation service providers; it then simply becomes a matter of marketing those applications to their customers with those particular requirements.   

 

For service providers looking for more information on how to grow their business through the bundling of new applications that live in the cloud, Parallels Summit 2013, Feb 4-6, at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas is the place to be. Hundreds of ISVs with be demonstrating their services. There will be technical, developer, and business tracks on how to enable and promote applications in the cloud along with best practices on working with Parallels products that push your business up the ladder. Be there to experience and assess what you could use for your customers.

 

Marketing, Parallels Automation, Saas, service provider, Small Businesses, Software as a service

Parallels Automation 5.4 Launches, Delivering Enterprise-Grade Hosted PBX, Microsoft® Lync and Microsoft® Hosted Exchange Capabilities

 

Additional features, including the new Parallels Web Presence Builder, are specifically designed for service providers to meet the growing demand for cloud services by small and medium businesses (SMBs)

 

We are excited to announce the general availability of Parallels Automation 5.4, the latest version of the most comprehensive hosting and cloud services delivery system used by hundreds of service providers worldwide, from the world’s largest telecom operators to top hosters and providers of vertical solutions. 

 

Among the new cloud service delivery capabilities in Parallels Automation 5.4 is a suite of communications and collaboration features, including a full-featured virtual PBX enablement solution for delivering hosted BroadSoft BroadWorks PBX and hosted Microsoft® Lync™ services. These features are designed specifically to meet the growing demands of small and medium businesses (SMBs) for hosted PBX and other cloud applications. According to Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™, the market for hosted communications and collaboration services experienced a 75% year-over-year growth in 2012, reaching $2.5B and is expected to carry a 35% CAGR through 2014.

 

The new hosted communications and collaboration capabilities in Parallels Automation 5.4 enables hosters of any size to launch much needed hosted PBX services, bundled with business email, instant messaging and other services.  These services are suited to meet the communications needs of SMBs, whether they are replacing a legacy PBX system or moving to their very first PBX service. Parallels has also simplified the deployment of these services by partnering with best-in-breed providers to add flexibility and enhanced capabilities.  Hosters can choose to integrate these services with their own BroadSoft Broadworks solution, or use wholesale services enabled by preferred partners Apptix, Alteva and Sipcom.  

 

In addition, Parallels Automation 5.4 delivers hosted Microsoft Lync services, appealing to the 178 million employees of SMBs worldwide who seek to leverage cloud-based messaging, collaboration and unified communications across desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Microsoft Lync also includes built-in web and call conferencing support and is a natural upsell to those SMBs already utilizing Microsoft Exchange, either on-premises or in a hosted environment. Parallels Automation 5.4 also provides billing automation and provisioning of this and other hosted Microsoft services, while enabling additional application integration of other hosted third-party applications from leading ISVs.

 

“Parallels Automation continues to be a competitive differentiator for Apptix and a key reason why blue chip channel partners are turning to Apptix to drive their cloud success,” said Joy Nemitz, Chief Marketing Officer, Apptix. “It provides a single platform for provisioning, management, and billing of all of our Cloud services and allows us to beat our competitors to market with new services and capabilities into the market – such as Microsoft Lync.”

 

“Parallels Automation continues to be the platform of choice for service providers seeking to profit from the rapidly-growing opportunity for delivering cloud services to SMBs,” said Jack Zubarev, President of Parallels. “With the addition of hosted PBX, and Microsoft Lync, Parallels Automation is delivering even more opportunities for service providers to meet the diverse needs of SMBs.”

 

In addition to the Hosted PBX and Microsoft Lync capabilities, Parallels Automation 5.4 also delivers number of enhancements, including:

 

  • • Updated Control Panel – Parallels Automation has an entirely refreshed end-user control panel. Many scenarios have been optimized based on customer input and the look and feel has been unified with Parallels Plesk Panel to offer a common interface throughout all Parallels control panels. These and other new self-service features make Parallels Automation more efficient for both the service provider and their end-user customers.

 

  • • New Parallels Web Presence Builder – As the worldwide market for Web presence is expected to grow to $12.6 billion by 20141, hosters continue to seek ways to capitalize on this growing market, to differentiate their offers and grow their service revenue. The new Parallels Web Presence Builder features prebuilt site templates with customized text for more than 75 different industries – enabling SMBs to set up a complete, professional-looking website in record time.  Parallels Web Presence Builder also enables users to easily customize website content, integrate it with Facebook, and let visitors share content on popular social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

  • • Parallels Windows Provisioning Engine (WPE) – As Microsoft has wound down its Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) solution, service providers will have to find a new platform to deliver hosted and syndicated Microsoft Exchange and other tools. Parallels Automation 5.4 is a leading Microsoft-certified solution that allows service providers to migrate their customers from HMC to future hosted e-mail and other applications.  This includes Hosted Exchange 2010 SP2 services via Parallels WPE, which enables the migration from older Exchange versions.

 

 

The market continues to take notice of Parallels momentum. In a recently published report, technology industry research firm IDC states, “Given Parallels’ current base of 5,000 partners/customers in the SMB IT channel (hosting providers, resellers, and integrators) and market penetration of the Parallels Plesk Panel product (50% market share in the control panel segment), IDC believes that the company is well positioned to establish an up-the-stack presence in the service delivery/enablement platforms of SMB cloud IT supply chain participants.”2 The full IDC report is available for download from Parallels Web site at: http://bit.ly/yt6kg7

 

For more information on Parallels Automation, visit: http://www.parallels.com/products/automation/

 

 

1 Parallels SMB Cloud Insights, 2012

2 IDC, Parallels Private Vendor Watchlist Profile: Helping Service Providers Compete in the Cloud, doc #233149, Feb. 2012


APS, APS Partners, Cloud Services, Events, Marketing, Parallels Automation, Saas, service provider, Small Businesses, Software as a service, Webinar

APS and SaaS Webinar for Service Providers featuring Solgari, Ecwid, VMWare and Quest

 

Our recent case study describes how leading Hong Kong hosting service provider, Pacificnet Hosting Limited (PacHosting), used Parallels Application Packaging Standard (APS) to broaden its portfolio and reduce time-to-market for new services. With APS, PacHosting was able to create new revenue opportunities in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space and rapidly ramp-up services. We have arranged for some leaders in the SaaS field to explain how your business can profit like PacHosting by offering the most in-demand applications to small and medium business customers. This is a great opportunity for service providers to learn how to easily market and sell high-demand commercial applications and services, and how Parallels can help providers of any size be successful in increasing ARPU and reducing customer churn.

 

This month’s scheduled presentations include:

 

Solgari – Discover the fantastic opportunity to provide Solgari Hosted PBX & Voice Services to your business customers

Ecwid – Find out how you can grow your ecommerce base with our 100% AJAX widget shopping cart

VMware – Learn how Zimbra Collaboration Server allows you to offer an advanced enterprise email & calendaring solution at a low TCO

Quest – Discover the many benefits of Quest’s OnDemand Migration for Email

 

Webinar starts Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 8am PDT. Don’t miss it – Register now!

Cloud computing, Cloud Services, News Round-Up, Saas, Small Businesses, SMB, Software as a service

News Round-Up 5/5/2012: What Makes the Cloud Cool, Feds in the Cloud, 10 Things Your Cloud Contract Needs

 

There have been some exciting announcements and fascinating news articles recently regarding cloud services and service providers. Every week we will round up the most interesting topics from around the globe and consolidate them into a weekly summary.

 

Cloud Computing Gains in Federal Government

The Federal Government is warming to the speed, agility and functionality of cloud computing.

 

State companies helping Army with cloud computing

The U.S. Army has turned to cloud computing, and to Wisconsin companies, to improve its intelligence gathering in Afghanistan.

 

Saas Offering Provides Detailed Analysis of Your Software Portfolio

Are you faced with the need to do a software portfolio analysis but find the prospect daunting given the scattered nature of your operation? A new SaaS-based offering might fit the bill.

 

SaaS Business Apps Drive SMB Cloud Computing Adoption

Lots of small and medium businesses have discovered the benefits of software-as-a-service. These SaaS applications are driving cloud adoption among SMBs. 

 

Here’s What Makes The Cloud So Cool

Mike Pearl from PriceWaterhouseCooper provides a useful plan of attack for business adoption of cloud computing.

 

10 Things You Just Gotta Have in Your Cloud Contract

CFO’s guide to the wild and wooly world of cloud services in which contracts are mutable, companies come and go, and politics a continent away could materially impact your business.

 

 

Also in the news:

 

 

 

Amazon Web Services, AWS, AWS Marketplace, IT Management, Private Cloud, Saas, Software as a service

New AWS Marketplace Offers Pre-Configured Software for the AWS Cloud

Image representing Amazon Web Services as depi...

Amazon Web Services today launched AWS Marketplace, an online store that makes it easy for customers to find, compare, and immediately start using the software and technical services they need to build products and run their businesses. Visitors to AWS Marketplace can use 1-Click deployment to quickly launch pre-configured software and pay only for what they use, by the hour or month, while benefiting from the scalable, flexible and on-demand features of AWS. With AWS Marketplace, software and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers with offerings that run on the AWS Cloud can benefit from increased customer awareness, simplified deployment, and automated billing. AWS Marketplace features a wide selection of commercial and free IT and business software, including software infrastructure such as databases and application servers, developer tools, and business applications – available from popular vendors such as 10gen, CA, Canonical, Couchbase, Check Point Software, IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG, and Zend, as well as many widely used open source offerings including Drupal, MediaWiki, and WordPress. To get started with AWS Marketplace please visit: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace.

AWS Marketplace simplifies many of the traditional challenges software and SaaS companies face, such as acquiring customers, developing distribution channels, and billing for their software. With AWS Marketplace, a simple listing process makes it quick and easy to add products and expose them to AWS’s hundreds of thousands of active customers. Product prices are clearly stated and charges appear on the same bill as a customer’s other AWS services. Customers can quickly deploy products found in the marketplace and software providers can easily add billing to their products by specifying hourly or monthly charges, without undertaking costly code changes. Billing is managed by AWS Marketplace, relieving sellers of the responsibility of managing customer accounts and processing payments, and leaving software developers more time to focus on building great software.

“AWS Marketplace brings the same simple, trusted, and secure online shopping experience that customers enjoy on Amazon.com’s retail website to software built for the AWS platform, streamlining the process of doing research and purchasing software,” said Terry Hanold, Vice President of New Business Initiatives, AWS. “AWS Marketplace makes it even easier to run software on AWS because you can find a wide variety of AWS ecosystem providers’ solutions, in one place, where much of the work involved in building and deploying solutions on top of AWS has already been done for you by these solutions providers.”

AWS is the leading cloud platform with a fast growing ecosystem of providers building solutions on top of the platform.

“Zend Application Fabric enables developers to confidently deploy fast, elastic and dependable PHP applications,” said Zend CEO Andi Gutmans. “AWS Marketplace makes it simple for our customers to access Zend on the AWS cloud and pay only for the infrastructure needed to run their applications. By providing customers a single invoice for combined software and server capacity, businesses can operate more effectively than ever before.”

“AWS Marketplace provides companies like ours an opportunity to easily reach new customers,” said Carolee Gearhart, SAP’s National Vice President of OEM & Strategic Partner Group for North America. “We expect our customers will benefit from SAP’s robust BI functionality, while taking advantage of the quick deployment capabilities provided by AWS Marketplace.”

Customers can browse AWS Marketplace or learn more details about its features and benefits of AWS Marketplace by visiting https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace.