I remain skeptic about any attempts to break out SaaS value/price in a pure TCO, like in this article by Barry Rosenberg and Craig Wright on techweb. If nothing else, simply because of the (human) random nature of choosing between intangibles such as security, mobility, usability, … which are all perceptions.

Whereas I agree with the authors that the key challenge in comparing licensed to hosted software is establishing a common measuring tape to avoid comparing apples and pears, I don’t agree that it’s possible to quantify such measuring tape as a TCO model, simply because of the random nature of perception.…

Google Apps is already grabbing corporate attention. It’s not the Google apps’ themselves, but the APIs to allow ISVs and other power software houses can use to write applications that extend or integrate with Google Apps. Whereas security was already a known concern about Google Apps, and Postini is certainly betting on the right horse, Avaya is being innovative and extending its IVR portfolio into the SaaS space. The full article is here.…

It seems like the SaaS media relationships departments have been busy since last night. Microsoft and BT are talking about BT Application Marketplace, Salesforce is hinting about its 25,000 user customer and Google is in fanfarre-mode with Apps Premier Edition. It’s a busy today for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), but I am not sure it’s a coincidence but a follow up on last night’s rumour, now confirmed, about Google’s launch of Google Apps Premier Edition.

Besides the news fanfare, I am afraid there isn’t much new technology onto Google’s announcement, but a rebranding of the existing Google Apps for your Domain (GMail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk) joined with Google Spreadsheet and Docs.…

Eweek reports about Microsoft’s architecture guidance on SaaS (Software as a Service). There is code, a video and a screencast released on MSDN which I highly recommend watching. Well done, Microsoft.…

As we discussed originally while looking at Web 2.0 software-as-a-service business models, we saw how hosted software is not a competitive offering for mid- to large companies over 500 employees. New research by Quocirca and Forrester now comes to a similar conclusion, and they add that there is a grey zone between 250 and 500 employees where it’s not clear the value in hosted services. Quocirca concludes saying that hosted services are rarely cheaper than in-house services, overseeing the 5.7 million businesses in the US under 500 employees.…

There seems to be at least 17 startups taking on the A-Team of the desktop applications, and possibly another hundred thousand teenagers creating their own little Web 2.0 application-du-jour in communities like entrepreneur extraordinaire Mark Andressen’s Ning.

Since the software-as-a-service business model is mainly only attractive for smaller to medium companies, why are there so many web 2.0 applications popping out everywhere?

I believe the catalyst has been a generational change. Web 2.0 is not anymore an emerging phenomena only found among geeks playing with XML, and asynchronous HTTP requests.…

The recent advent of Web 2.0 no-software start-ups like 37signals, salesforce.com, Writely, etc. is getting plenty of attention by the media and VCs alike, but I have not seem much about the pricing model of these no-software business models.

The basic idea, repeated all over the place in Web 2.0 start-ups, is that one can develop very rich user interfaces using thin client technology. Instead of installing a local copy of Microsoft Word, you use Writely. Instead of installing Siebel in your enterprise as a CRM solution, you use Salesforce.com.…