From the Chargify Blog:

Over the last decade, software as a service (SaaS) has taken the computing world by storm. By being able to deploy software over the web, people no longer have to download bulky software packages and it’s given businesses a lot more flexibility. Today, SaaS is used to power a wide variety of business applications: sales force automation, CRM, document management, financials and of course Chargify.

In honor of SaaS flexibility and the recent release of the iPhone 4, we review some of today’s best SaaS apps for the iPhone and iPad:

Apptio, a Bellevue, Washington-based provider of SaaS-delivered Technology Business Management solutions this morning announced that it has closed a $16.5 million Series C round – the company has now raised up to $37.5 million in venture capital.

The financing round, which the company says was oversubscribed, was led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from all current investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Madrona Venture Group.

When Salesforce.com bought crowdsourced business contact database Jigsaw for $142 million earlier this year, the CRM giant said that it would combine its suite of applications with Jigsaw’s model for the automation of acquiring and keeping up-to-date business contact data. Today, Salesforce is unveiling Jigsaw’s deep integration into the company’s platform, Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM.

Jigsaw will now deliver real-time updates to contact and company information within Salesforce CRM through communication platform Salesforce Chatter. Jigsaw, which uses a Wikipedia-style crowd-sourcing model to bring in data around business contacts, has been incorporated into CRM applications to provide on-demand data, and analytics on the health of data and on usage.

Secure Signing Offers Digital Signature SaaS Solution Powered by ARX' CoSign Technology

written by:  Raja Singh Chaudhary

Secured Signing, a provider of a secure web-based digital signature service that delivers a full range of signing capabilities combining advanced PKI technology, has announced to introduce a new Software as a Service or ‘SaaS’ offering that will leverage ARX' CoSign digital signatures technology to enable secured signing transactions based upon Public Key Infrastructure or PKI.

 IaaS Isn't Just Cloud Computing Fluff:  Survey

CRN Article by:  Andrew R. Hickey

Enterprises are latching on to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and projects are moving more swiftly than expected, according to a recent survey conducted by the Yankee Group.

Novell has launched its Cloud Security Service that gives cloud providers the ability to deliver secure access and compliance in the cloud for their customers.

The company said that its new service enables enterprises to have a consistent framework for managing identities across physical, virtual and cloud deployments, and allows them to extend their identity infrastructure to any public cloud.

LiveOffice, the number-one provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) email archiving, email compliance and email continuity solutions, today announced it has once again made the Inc. 5000 list, a prestigious recognition for the fastest-growing private companies in America. LiveOffice attributes the placement to its four-year growth rate of 108 percent, which is largely the result of increased interest in LiveOffice Personal Archive as well as new product introductions, such as LiveOffice Social Archive and LiveOffice SharePoint Archive.

As Jane Berenston, editor of Inc. magazine notes in the September issue, "Growing at all during these past few years of recession, frozen credit, uncertain markets, and depressed business and consumer spending is noteworthy. Growing fast verges on incredible." LiveOffice's growth during the economic downturn illustrates the value of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, such as LiveOffice archiving solutions, to businesses of all sizes. With the SaaS delivery model, end users benefit from access to enterprise-class software, while IT departments (and their budgets) benefit from a fixed monthly pricing model that makes it easy to add and remove users as needed.

"Receiving this recognition three years in a row is a great honor and a testament to the increasing demand for cloud-based email archiving, compliance and continuity services among businesses," said LiveOffice CEO Nick Mehta. "I am extremely proud of our team's dedication to continuously evolve our product roadmap to meet client and industry requirements, while also providing outstanding customer service. Our placement on this list also provides us with the perfect opportunity to extend a sincere 'thank you' to our thousands of clients nationwide for helping us sustain our leadership position in the hosted archiving industry."

Right-Time Analytics Show ROI of Social Media, Web, Paid Search and Traditional Marketing

myDIALS, a leading vendor of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) performance management solutions, today announced the availability of its myDIALS Performance Module for Marketing <http://www.mydials.com/documents/myDIALSforMarketing.pdf> , the industry’s first SaaS performance management solution that provides sophisticated visualisation and analytics to show the effect marketing programs have on revenues and profits. Executive teams can now quickly understand how marketing spend will impact revenues through what-if scenarios.  

A post from the Intuit blog:

The times they are a-changing when it comes to how people work. This rise of “employee software” continues to grow at alarming rates in all segments of the market – including SMBs and departments within large enterprises.

Just a few years ago, workers used whatever the “standard issued software” was that came on their computer desktop. For departments within small and medium sized companies, workers were either restricted by their IT department or strangled by their own inabilities to install software.