21 (SaaS) Software as a Service vendors; A brief overview

By Darshik Jariwala - January, 28th 2014

Software as a Service (SaaS) is steadily installable applications in IT industries owing to the wide range of software applications available on-demand. The rapidly growing amount of data, complex infrastructure, inability to constantly scale resources at regular short intervals has compelled businesses to turn to software vendors who provide same applications, only, cloud based. Below, we have enlisted 21 such companies who provides different types of cloud based softwares.

1. Abiquo Inc. 

Abiquo Inc. provides software solutions for companies who have already deployed cloud or virtualization technologies. Abiquo’s software (SaaS product) helps the company manage those cloud or virtualization technology in a more simplified and efficient manner. Some of the software features include providing a unified easy to use portal for the entire Public, Private and Hybrid cloud services, automating complete cloud infrastructure, automate tasks such as user, network or VM provisioning among many other benefits.

2. SAP 

SAP’s enterprise software named SAP Business ByDesign is mainly targeted towards small and medium sized enterprises. Business ByDesign is SAP’s SaaS offering and a cloud based Enterprise Resource Planning software which is of-course delivered online. Business ByDesign’s other main features include built-in business analytics, e-learning and support services. Business ByDesign is designed to manage various aspects such as compliance management, customer relationship management, project management, supply chain management to name a few. SAP is a very well-known company for their products and the services they deliver.

3. Accelops

Update (12th Sep 2016): Fortinet recently acquired Accelops which is why the link now redirects to Fortinet’s website

Accelops’ provides a unified analytics driven software used to monitor cloud, virtualized environment and data center infrastructure. It shows alerts and reports on the security, performance and availability of infrastructure. This virtualized SaaS by Accelops not only monitors on-premise equipments and devices, but off-premise, public cloud and private cloud environments as well. Accelops was selected as one of the “Cool Vendors in IT Operations Management” by Gartner in 2012.

4. Salesforce.com Inc. 

Rarely we come across cloud computing articles without the mention of Salesforce. Salesforce is the leader in enterprise cloud computing. Right from the time Salesforce.com founded, in 1999, it specializes in SaaS. Although Salesforce is widely appreciated for its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, its reach has broadened thanks to numerous acquisitions it has made over the years. Besides offering SaaS, Salesforce also ventured in to Platform as a Service (PaaS) with another product, Force.com.

5. Akamai Technologies Inc. 

Founded in 1998, Akamai is a Content Delivery Network, with headquarters in Massachusetts, United States. It promises to deliver a superior experience with Akamai Performance Solutions for SaaS, which is designed to improve performance, availability and consistency of services delivered via Internet. Akamai Technologies has also ventured in other areas besides SaaS through various acquisitions it has made over the years.

6. Pardot 

Pardot is a  B2B (Business to Business) Marketing Automation software provider. Pardot’s SaaS provides in-depth marketing analytics to manage online marketing campaigns which helps improve efficiency and revenue. Pardot was acquired by ExactTarget in October 2012, however, both Pardot and ExactTarget were later acquired by Salesforce.com in July 2013. Pardot features certified CRM integrations with with Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite and SugarCRM.

7. AppDynamics Inc. 

AppDynamics Inc. is an Application Performance Management (APM) company that helps monitor and manage application performance in cloud or in data center. AppDynamics also offers real time business transaction monitoring and diagnostics.

8. Oracle

Oracle offers SaaS with its Oracle CRM On Demand product. CRM on Demand helps organizations with real time analytics and adaptive business planning. It integrates sales and marketing in the cloud. They promise best value with low total cost of ownership, high level enterprise grade security and gives clients choice of single-tenancy or multi-tenancy options. SaaS is simply one of the many offerings by Oracle Corporation.

9. Netsuite

Netsuite provides cloud based ERP software. Its ERP software suite includes Accounting, CRM, Inventory and E-Commerce. Gartner has also named them as the fastest growing financial software vendor globally. Netsuite was also ranked as one of the top 20 cloud computing companies in the world.

10. Aditi Technologies

Update (12th Sep 2016): Aditi technologies was acquired by Symphony Teleca Corporation, while Symphony Teleca Corporation was later acquired by Harman International Industries Incorporated hence the link is being redirected to Harmans website.

Aditi technologies, founded in 1994 and headquartered in Bangalore, India, is a Cloud Services and Outsourced Product Development company. It provides ITO services to software vendors. Aditi Technologies caters to enterprises by offering business applications like ERP, CRM and HRMS as SaaS. The company was also ranked among top 100 by NASSCOM in 2007.

11. Eloqua

Eloqua, now acquired by Oracle, is a marketing automation SaaS company. Headquartered in Virginia, US, Eloqua boasts of clients such as Apple Inc., eBay, Comcast, Adobe, Polycom, Dow Jones among others, it helps businesses drive revenue through demand generation and lead generation services. Oracle Corporation acquired Eloqua in 2012 for $871 million.

12. Marketo Inc.

Marketo Inc. also makes marketing automation software for companies. Manage all your marketing and sales with Email marketing and Social marketing campaigns. Bundle it up with its Analytics to measure ROI performance over time, forecast and manage budget more accurately with Marketing Management Services. It ranked 28 in in 2011 in Forbes list of Most Promising Companies.

13. Intacct

Intacct is a provider of Financial Management and Accounting Software solutions. The word “Intacct” is derived from “Internet” and “Accounting”. They are also considered as pioneers in SaaS and Cloud since their products were one of the first to use multi-tenant architecture which significantly lowers the cost of service delivery. It offers 2 main products: Intacct and Intacct Accounting Edition.

14. Antenna Software

Update (12th Sep 2016): It has been acquired by Pegasystems and has now been rebranded as AMP.

Antenna Software provides cloud based enterprise mobility suite to help create and manage mobile apps and websites. With increasing number of people using smartphones and tablets, and even more number of people embracing cloud based apps and storage solutions,  Antenna software is probably one of the sought after companies. It was infact acquired by Pegasystems only a few days ago.

15. Taleo

Taleo’s SaaS solutions mainly focuses on Talent Acquisitions and Performance Management. Taleo prefers to calls its product “Talent Intelligence”, as it helps businesses recruit the right candidate with right skills for the job. It collects relevant information about the employee from throughout their entire lifecycle which helps businesses leverage that talent for more efficiency and improved performance. Since Taleo was also acquired by Oracle in 2012, it is since called, “Oracle Taleo Enterprise Cloud Service”.

16. CVM Solutions

CVM Solutions cloud platform provides Supplier management SaaS. CVM cloud platform is built on Force.com application development platform along with using their infrastructure as well. Its product, Supplier Central, provides the ability to manage global supplier information centrally across large organizations. Some of CVM Solutions’ clients include ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart and Delta Air Lines.

17. Reval

Reval is a leading SaaS provider of Treasury and Risk Management Solutions. It provides this cloud based solutions for Corporations, Financial Institutions and for Accounting and Advisory Firms. It helps clients manage their finance and risks associated with it. It also won an award in 2012 and 2013 by Global Finance Magazine for Best Financial Risk Management Solution.

18. Exoprise Systems

Exoprise Systems’ SaaS application suite, CloudReady, helps businesses monitor real-time performance of the mission critical cloud based applications. It gathers information related to usage, cost and reliability directly from the users for CloudReady to create an analysis.

19. LiveOps

LiveOps is regarded a global leader for its cloud contact center and customer service solutions. LivesOps’ product mainly caters to call centers (BPO’s), with services such as chat, email, inbound calls, etc,. for more efficient customer interactions. LiveOps Cloud Contact Center applications include LiveOps Engage, Voice, Chat, Email, Social, Insight, Recording, Authoring and LiveOps for Salesforce which integrated with Salesforce CRM.

20. GageIn

Update (12th Sep 2016): GageIn has been shut down.

GageIn gathers information about companies from websites, social media, forums and various other sources. You can then configure to receive alerts on any update or activity by the company such as, new product launch, acquisitions, high profile hiring, changes in leaderships, mergers and any other major event. GageIn is at present offering free public beta and which is limited by following up to five companies.

21. ProofHub

ProofHub is a web-based Project Management Software in order to help the project members collaborate and easily share ideas in a common workplace, helping monitor the project’s progress in real-time, work more effectively and deliver project on time. They offer various features such as Gantt Charts, Discussions, To-Do List’s, Calendar & Milestones, Built-in Chat support among other features. Keeping in mind the mobility required for getting the job done anywhere and any place, Proofhub is accessible from Desktops, tablets and Proofhub mobile works directly on your phone’s web browser – no apps required. ProofHub present clients boasts of name such as Harvard University, Wipro, Zomato, TripAdvisor and Panasonic to name a few.

Feature Photo Credit – Perspecsys Photos / Flickr

Post Update : Added ProofHub (25th April, 2014) on the suggestion of a fellow commentator. Thanks Arlen !