In the late 90's when NetDocuments was founded, we were one of the worlds first SaaS companies and have since witnessed first hand the evolution of the SaaS market. Recently, Service-Now.com released a white paper titled, "A Brief History of SaaS," and I found it very accurate and informative.

The white paper begins by discussing where traditional boxed software comes up short and how this created the need for SaaS:

Recently, Google announced the future release of Google Chrome OS and this has caused quite a stir on Twitter and in the technology blog scene. Everyone is talking about how cloud computing and SaaS applications are the waves of the future and how they will change the computer industry. Although I beleive this to be true, I still find one glaring weakness in this argument; Cloud computing and SaaS are not only the waves of the future, but are the waves of the here and now.

Guest writer: Keith Schneider, Sr. Account Manager at NetDocuments

"Back from New Orleans after attending the annual Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) national meeting. Although the attendance was off by 35% from last year's we still received good attention at the NetDocuments booth. Because of the economic times the annual meeting was less of a "boondoggle", for those administrators who attended, and more of an educational trip than years past.

I recently read an article on how CIOs of SMBs can cut 50-80 percent of their communication costs, e.g. messaging, phone services, etc., by by moving to an Anywhere IT environment. The article can be found at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/CIOs-Can-Cut-50-to-80-Percent-bw-14715708.html

Using Yankee Group as a model SMB, CTO Jeffrey Breen and Vice President Steve Hilton uncovered more than $150,000 of annual savings opportunities. The new series of reports, "CIO's Guide to Cost Cutting" advise that SMBs:

I just read some good articles on the long term forecast of Cloud Computing on Wired's Portfolio.com site. the article highlights a key issue regarding the preceived fears of SaaS and security.

In an ongoing survey conducted by the research firm IDC, almost 75 percent of I.T. executives and CIOs report that security is their primary concern, followed by performance and reliability.

Good perspective from those that have the big picture view:

NetDocuments, a leader in SaaS content management, announced today that it has been named to KMWorld Magazine's prestigious list of the "100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management." Published annually, this list recognizes organizations that have played a role in the creation and evolution of the knowledge management market through consistent innovation of technologies, products and services. Companies chosen for this list are compiled by KM practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors and their customers and colleagues.

1. SMB Market Capture. Microsoft, Oracle, Novell, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard... have all pursued the Small-to-Medium Business sector. Now for the first time there is a technology and business model, SaaS, which can profitably reach this market. And, the winners will not just be the large tech companies but also the small SaaS companies. NetDocuments is perfectly suited for the SMB market. Furthermore, the SMB market is more recession-proof than large enterprise markets.

On August 26th, 2008, NetDocuments held a luncheon event at the Gaylord Texan Resort during ILTA 2008, the annual meeting for law firm technology administrators. We presented this video presentation to celebrate the NetDocuments 10 year anniversary together with many of our customers who were at this event. Click below to play this 10 minute video.