Category Archives: SaaS

21/01/2009 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, SaaS 1 Comment

Diligent – The End Is Nigh

By Ben Kepes

Diligent Board Member Services (lots more info here) yesterday announced that they’d been successful in raising another round of funding. Diligent is positive saying that; [Diligent] hat its ability to raise capital under such severe market conditions underlines the quality and potential of its Boardbooks product. This investment will strengthen

20/12/2008 Posted in Business, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 4 Comments

Another Global SaaS Accounting Player

By Ben Kepes

Xero promised a global version in 2009. They’ve just announced that as of Monday, over a week earlier than the promised earliest date, they’ll be releasing their international version. Read the full details here. Let’s observe how this Kiwi battler takes on the world!

19/12/2008 Posted in Business, IT, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

SageLive – Yet Another SaaS Accounting Product

By Ben Kepes

Sage has just released the first iteration of their new on-demand accounting product. Names SageLive, the product has some really smart features, along with some glaring holes. The biggest question is whether a traditional vendor can really commit to a subscription based product on an ongoing basis – Sage are

11/12/2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Strategy Leave a comment

Sold – To the Company With the Biggest Chequebook

By Ben Kepes

I posted about a month ago about the suitors for accounting software company MYOB. I’ve just been told that MYOB has accepted an offer from Manhattan pending shareholder approval. Details below. As I said to another accounting software industry player, I guess the saying “a bird in the hand is

05/12/2008 Posted in Business, Governance, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Diligent Nears the Deadpool

By Ben Kepes

It had to happen – news that Diligent is close to out of cash, has fired a huge chunk of it’s staff and has no real idea if its search for cash will succeed. Apparently they; will run out of cash at the end of April unless…able to access new

02/12/2008 Posted in IT, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Sage Upping the SaaS Ante

By Ben Kepes

We’ve been waiting for a really compelling on-demand accounting offering from one of the big boys. Thus far we’ve had Intuit deliver QuickBooks Online (CloudAve review here) which got a "nice try but back to the classroom" grade. MYOB delivered the first generation of the BusinessBasics Online product (Diversity review

27/11/2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, New business, New Zealand, SaaS 1 Comment

LeftClick Scores a Coup

By Ben Kepes

Great to see some press time for LeftClick, a company I’ve had a bit to do with in an informal advisory role. LeftClick’s motto is “Make Every Click Count” and that’s what they do – increase the return on investment for web businesses by ensuring that more visits convert into

26/11/2008 Posted in IT, PaaS, SaaS, Web x.0 2 Comments

The Future of Accounting – Guest Post, Rod Drury

By Ben Kepes

As part of an Accounting 2.0 series I’m compiling over on CloudAve, I reached out to some accounting software visionaries to give us their take on the future of accounting/business software and how the eco system would look five or ten years out. Well know local (local in New Zealand)

25/11/2008 Posted in IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 3 Comments

Xero gets its first win over the ditch!

By Ben Kepes

Congratulations to Xero who have just announced that the first of the Australian banks has come on board and is providing direct automatic feeds into Xero. As Lucy says; NAB will be providing this integral and innovative service in December for NAB customers using Xero. As soon as the feeds are

24/11/2008 Posted in SaaS 2 Comments

The Pictorial Benefits of SaaS…

By Ben Kepes

With a hat tip to one of my personal flock of tipsters, David Macgregor, Check out this great (yes frivolous but great nonetheless) video from the Google docs team. It’s summer in New Zealand so ice crystals are smewhat irrelevant, and I’m an agnostic so Yuletide greetings are somewhat irrelevant

The Author

Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. More on Ben

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