A new study from AMI Partners, “Adding Fresh Value to the SaaS Equation: Six Vendors to Watch approaches that smaller, newer vendors are taking to help accelerate adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) products in the small and medium business markets. ,” looks at the

 

The report examines how, specifically, Boomi, Dreamfactory, LucidEra, MyBizHomepage, Zoho and Zuora are bringing new value to SMBs by “concentrating on making SaaS (News - Alert) products more affordable, accessible and flexible.

 

Earlier this month, TMC  reported that Zoho Mail, the company's Web-based e-mail service, emerged from private beta and is now publicly available. Zoho also announced offline access and mobile device support for Zoho Mail.

Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist, said for an application like Mail, “offline and mobile support are key. We wanted to offer these features right out of the gate."

 

The SaaS model, as popular as it might be in pockets, isn’t mainstream yet: “Currently, about 26 percent of small businesses, and about 33 percent of medium businesses currently use or plan to use SaaS,” according to the AMI survey:

 

“Especially as some established SaaS players move upstream to focus on large and upper mid-market customers, ample opportunity remains for other vendors to innovate and add the kind of value needed to pull more SMBs into the market,” says Laurie McCabe, VP of SMB Solutions & Insights at New York-based AMI-Partners.

 

Though often more affordable than traditional, on-premise products, many SaaS products are still out of reach for cash-strapped SMBs, the survey finds: “Vendors such as Zoho and MyBizHomepage are reducing the pricing barrier with free and low-cost products; others, such Zuora and Boomi, are slashing infrastructure and integration costs for SaaS developers, who can pass their savings on to customers.”

 

The shift from product-centric to service-centric businesses is “well underway,” the survey finds, adding that vendors such as Zuora, with its Z-Billing and Payments products, and Zoho, with Zoho Creator and Marketplace make it easier for other vendors to make the shift.

 

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