SaaS

Today, Rackspace is hosting our first annual Rackspace SaaS Summit, an all-day event featuring presentations on how to grow your SaaS business from industry leaders like Accenture, Microsoft, Akamai, Boomi Nimsoft and best-selling author Daniel Pink. In today’s Summit, we’re officially launching AppMatcher, the matchmaking engine that helps businesses quickly locate the apps they need for everything from accounting to project management and human resources.

You know that Grandma who hoards everything? She probably has newspapers from a random Tuesday in 1993 just sitting around. You know those newspapers are useless; she knows they are useless, but years pass and there they sit. Why? Just in case.

For many businesses, especially startups, cost is sometimes the unfortunate bottom line when it comes to business expenses. And, even when it’s obvious that the less-expensive product or service is of lower quality, it may be all that the business can afford.

There is a lot of confusion currently about cloud computing. Questions abound both in terms of what it is and what it is not. And of course, there is a healthy dose of disagreement on whether it is really the next big thing.

Last week, IBM announced their move to offer high volume cloud based email services. The offer, called LotusLive, is intended to counter the move to a new set of online offers like Google Apps, and our own Rackspace Email service. IBM is the latest in a long line of traditional enterprise software companies feeling the impacts of new SaaS models. And, like many of those companies, they intend to compete.

Rackspace sponsored a case study presentation yesterday entitled “Determining the Right Infrastructure for SaaS and Web 2.0 Companies,” presented by Emil Sayegh (VP, Product at Rackspace) and Kraig Kuipers (CEO of Pangea Foundation). The case study walked through Pangea Foundation’s move from a colo provider to Rackspace.

I’m here in sunny California, home of the world famous In-n-Out Burger. No, I didn’t travel 1,700 miles for a cheeseburger (even if it is a double-double, animal style). I’m here for SaaSCon, the premier Software as a Service conference that brings together application developers, IT managers and infrastructure gurus. Over the next couple days, I will be providing you with a recap of the previous day’s events.