Last week, I was fortunate to be able to attend and speak at Microsoft’s Hosting Day, held in Chicago on April 16. Microsoft Hosting Days is an annual event series held in different cities around the world. The goal of these events is to provide hosters, telcos, ISVs, VARs and systems integrators with more knowledge and more tools to help grow their business. I was impressed with the turnout of Microsoft employees, VARs, hosters and SIs, and it was great to see old friends and meet new ones. But what was more impressive was how many people told me that their sales have increased during the past quarter, a period that we all acknowledge was a downturn.

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Customers, especially small and medium businesses (SMBs), are increasingly adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) as their preferred model for procuring and consuming software. This makes lots of sense, as SaaS provides customers with many cost, productivity and flexibility benefits.

The problem today with most SaaS offerings, however, is that they are designed as self-contained silos. This of course makes sense, as much of the value of SaaS solutions stems from the fact that they are turnkey. Silos are OK for a single application, or even a small handful of apps. But the reality is that most businesses utilize a wide portfolio of software for different functions. And while businesses are embracing SaaS, few if any, will be able to move completely to the cloud. Most will end up with a hybrid environment, where some apps are hosted in the cloud, and some remain on-premise. Even those who plan to ultimately move entirely to the cloud cannot do so in one mass migration. They will need to phase out on-premise applications in a staggered approach, and will have to manage a heterogenous environment of hosted and on-premise software throughout the process.
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For the last few years, the BlackBerry has been king of the business smartphones. Even as the iPhone becomes increasingly business friendly, it seems that the majority of pure business users prefer the BlackBerry to any other device. At Intermedia, many more of our hosted Exchange customers synchronize their mail, calendars and contacts to a BlackBerry than they do to an iPhone.

I think BlackBerry’s success in the business market stemmed from the device’s simplicity. Traditionally, BlackBerry smartphones came with a rather limited feature set, but it did them all really well. Wireless push email, phone, calendars, contacts and tasks. That was about it. There weren’t too many games, no music, no videos…just plain old boring business communications. A focus on the core business needs, combined with an emphasis on security and remote provisioning, policy and management all through a connection with a BlackBerry Enterprise Server made the BlackBerry smartphone the ideal business accessory.
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Will the iPhone community accept Good as a real enterprise option?

Since the first release of the iPhone in June 2007, an ongoing debate has raged over the smartphone’s enterprise worthiness. Some will argue that the phone was strictly a consumer device, lacking key features to make it enterprise-ready. Others lauded it as the ideal tool for the mobile worker, providing phone, real functional web browsing, and email fit for the higher executives due to its price tag…. So, who is right?

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