On Friday before Silicon Beach drinks I had a catchup with the other Webciety companies that will be at CeBIT Sydney over the next 3 days along with Saasu.

The Webciety pavilion focuses on web-based society. It features SaaS web applications like Saasu, mobile web, wikis, web communities, blogs, microblogs and other interactive Internet services which are making our lives increasingly digital and ever easier.

Webciety is a major success born out of CeBIT in Germany. All the Webciety participants are speaking at some point over the 3 days at the Webciety Pavilion. See the webciety speaking program for details. I’m speaking at 11:00am on Thursday the 14th on the topic of:

What will Web3.0 look like?
Web3.0 is in early stages, but the picture isn’t clear. Web3.0 is bigger than the sum of it’s parts and accordingly we have trouble seeing what it is.

We have launched a new Saasu Product Blog in order to help our customers and followers get the specific content they want from Saasu. You can find the Product Blog at productblog.saasu.com (subscribe). Our soapbox opinion and ideas around business, technology and simplification in life will still be found in our Simplify Life Blog at saasu.com/blog (subscribe).

The Saasu Product Blog Will Contain

1. New features and upgrades
2. Voucher Codes for Saasu and Partner products
3. How to’s
4. Connector previews
5. Case studies
6. Using Saasu in the web ecosystem

Why not just have one blog?

Blogs and their content are becoming targeted so consumers of content can choose exactly what streams of information they want to receive. It’s a time poor world we live in. If you want all the Saasu content then just subscribe to both using your Blog/RSS Reader of choice. (What is RSS? | Don’t have a reader?)

Saasu was one of the Top 10 Web 2.0 businesses mentioned in Smart Company magazine and website.

It’s always always nice to get a mention but when it’s along side some great companies we look up to like Atlassian and RedBubble it feels great.

The article points out Saasu’s strong growth in new business from offshore. Australia is where we began but as we internationalise to support more zones this is changing very quickly to be an global software as a service business in online accounting software systems.

What things can you do in your business to make it fun for your customers?

Back in 2000 we drew up some plans to make an accounting system a bit like a Monopoly board. The idea being that as your business assets grew you would see an image of you factory grow. Your sales pipeline would expand into a bigger pipe as revenue grew. We wanted to bring some fun to accounting which can otherwise be a tad boring.

Due to the conservative nature of accountants (a good thing, they are just trying to protect their customers in many cases) we decided to hold off on that approach. Another reason was the difficulty in dealing with animation in web interfaces back then while meeting targets on load time for screens. We were also trying to avoid pagination. Pagination is where you show 1-50 of 7,000 transactions as an example and then provide buttons or links to show transactions 51-100 etc. Pagination can be really annoying for customers as we discovered during our user experience surveys.

In 2004 we started using AJAX (it didn’t actually have a name back then) which gave us the speed and flexibility to create a more designed interface and a better perceived speed experience for customers. We still use AJAX extensively in Payroll where editable data sets are smaller but you won’t see it as much in screens that have large editable data sets because it begins to become cost rather than a benefit in load times. The customer experience might be nice but if the screen load is slow the customer will just want to throw the computer out the window.

AJAX still has issues in this area but they are slowly being worked around. New browser like Google Chrome will allow AJAX to be used right across data heavy applications as it is a very efficient in dealing with JavaScript (the J in AJAX).

Being a fan of Wordpress for blogging I really like their spam removal experience. When you click delete it turns red (like slaying the spam dragon) and then slides away off the screen. The destroy feeling is quite good. Gamers amongst you would like it. We implemented this idea back in 2005 into our Payroll and Invoicing modules (without the blood effect).

We are started to work on some UI design changes to give customers a bit more fun in the screens but as always the accessibility will be the controlling factor given our mantra of ensuring the keyboarders aren’t compromised in anyway.

If any of you have suggestions or examples of animation for deletion, creation, edit etc. just let us know as we will be working up our changes to reports and transaction searching/listing over the next few weeks.

Photo credit: Cowbite

Many customers and partners have asked for simple pricing. So we listened.

We have wanted to free up the restrictions on how many users you add so you help us spread the word. We also want to enable you to have the advisors, bookkeepers and employees and other people you need to help you run your business without having to upgrade each time.

• You no-longer pay for users. Just select how many business files you want.
• You can keep adding users as long as you don’t go too crazy (see fair play).

What’s not in these plans?

Enterprise customers have the higher levels of storage, transaction volumes, and features such as group payroll and e-commerce. Enterprises are charged at higher rates. To find out more about Enterprise features and pricing contact us.

Damn this is cheaper than when I renewed recently!

If you paid recently and you feel the value from these new plans is better just create a help ticket and we’ll give you some free subscription time so your feel better!

Imagine the Oscars for geeks. It is great winning awards, but even better to win the most hotly contested award two years running. The CeBIT.AU Business Advantage Award is given to the product or service that provides a clear, immediate and outstanding business benefit to its users regardless of industry segment and spans hardware and software.

A BIG thanks to all the customers and partners who have helped us build an even better application over the last year. Your subscription dollars are hard at work in Saasu Labs.

What CeBIT had to say

The Software as a Service business model swept major categories in the prestigious CeBIT.AU Business Awards 2008, taking the most contested categories and marking SaaS as the hot technology currently in the sector. Saasu.com was nominated for three awards and won the CeBIT.AU Business Advantage Award – arguably the most prestigious of the event – with its Saasu.com accounting package. Saasu.com was also a winner in 2007, with its integrated Net-based financial system that has seen enormous growth since the company exhibited at CeBIT Australia last year. Full CeBIT press release.

More SaaS ecosystem winners

Our friends over at eWay took the CeBIT.AU Excellence in Technology Services Award. eWay is a payments gateway provider. Congrats to Matt Bullock and his team. The eWAY payment gateway service provides secure Online payments and Mail Order processing of credit cards in real time via the Internet.

IPscape won the CeBIT.AU Excellence in Communications Award. IPscape has a Software as a Service product for contact centres. Congratulations to Simon Burke and his team. IPscape provide a SaaS product for contact centres typically less than 100 seats. Like Saasu they take care of upgrades, hardware and maintenance. Services that simplify the way contact centre technology is priced, delivered, and supported.

Photo Credit: CeBIT

The Saasu foundation which donates part of our profit towards charities. One of the charities we support is Kiva, who empower people with micro-finance.

Kiva help developing nations from the ground up. They don’t donate cash, they lend it to entrepreneurs (we relate to these guys!) to help them start a business. Teaching them to fish for themselves (so to speak) rather than throwing them a fish.

One of our first loans on Kiva was recently repaid. Kiva is a great service if you want to make a difference. The best thing is the funds are repaid and then recycled so the model is not only proven to work (impressive statistics on field partners) but it keeps on working.

See how your subscription to Saasu made a small difference to one guy via the Saasu foundation.

Kiva is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit in the US.

Saasu further supports the non-profit, education and health communities though the Saasu DISC program. So if you know anyone in those segments tell them to give us a bell so they can get their free or discounted stuff.

I did some work in Cambodia (in Takeo province outside Phnom Penh) a few years ago as part of some other stuff and they have had a rough time over the years so it is nice to see some progress. Although, with only 3 in every 1,000 people having internet access, that progress is very slow (read about it on Reuters AlertNet).

But don’t just take our word for the fact Kiva do a great job, they also recently won a prestigious Webby which is very cool.

Saasu also had some more praise recently. Our good fortune continues in the form of customer feedback and and also globally recognised industry awards.

On top of the many great comments we get every day for our latest release(see below), we have also been nominated for and listed as finalists for three awards at CeBIT 2008 some of you might remember last year we won the big one

Three of my all time best customer testimonials recently are (paraphrased) -

• We chose Saasu over Netsuite on price (mid market customer)
• We chose Saasu over Zoho on features (small business customer), particularly Saasu Catch
• We chose Saasu over MYOB on ease of use and because it is online (small business customer)

This demonstrates at the coal face the Saasu productivity and cost benefits. Our unique delivery model is really performing for businesses and individuals.

Now for the fun stuff. Saasu has made the finals for three CeBIT 2008 awards -

• Business Advantage Award - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 5
• Excellence in Technology Services Award - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 4
• Platinum Award for Export Excellence - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 2

Thanks to all of those who support the Saasu foundation via our products. Congrats to Kiva and Boun Kim Loun. Oh, and fingers crossed for the CeBIT 2008 awards.

Just a quick note to say thanks to all our blog readers!

The saasu blog is now in the top 0.32% of all blogs on the planet.

Our site is in the top 1.84% by traffic globally.

We have also popped into the first page on Google globally for some search terms.

In return, please accept our humble ‘video link gift’ below in addition to our earlier free CeBIT tickets.

Google strategy insights

It’s definitely worth watching this little gem. A unique bit of insight about how the gurus at Google are thinking on business strategy, product and customers. It came out some time ago but it’s still completely relevant for nearly all business owners today. It’s not just a tech thing.

It’s a video of Seth Godin speaking to a bunch of Google insiders on some strategic topics close to our heart. Seth is one of our favourite bloggers. We have written about his other important work previously.

Thanks again for your support. You are helping us build a truly global product that makes lives better. We can always do better though, so help us by giving feedback on what you want us to do.

Only one month to go! It is that time of year again, Cebit is coming to Sydney 35,000 wild business and technology people from around 60 countries in a frenzy of new and cool stuff in one place.

CeBIT is THE International Trade Show for Information Technology, Telecommunications, Software and Services. In other words, if you want to geek-out or get a real competitive advantage for your business you will love it.

Last year was good

Last year Saasu won the one and only highly prized ‘excellence in innovation platinum award’ for our flagship product NetAccounts. We were going to insert lots of other blatant boasting and superlatives here but thought that was probably more than you can take already.

This year will be even better

This year there will be something like 750 exhibitors from 20+ countries.

This year we will be speaking at the conference in the Transaction 2.0 section, chairing a session and of course exhibiting.

Best of all, as part of the Saasu foundation work we do, Saasu will be the sole green sponsor for the event, we are making the venue carbon neutral for the event for EVERY EXHIBITOR just so we can say we did our bit. Gold standard of course.

Special Bonus (or two)

As a special bonus you can register free as a friend of Saasu just quote code SAASUCA08 and you will get in free which is a fairly substantial saving off the normal door price of $40.

If you visit us at the show you will receive an extra month on your subscription for new and current customers! We will be asking all our visitors two questions - what do they like most about saasu today and what would they like to see in our coming releases?

You will also be able to see our latest release demonstrated and talk to the experts about your needs, wants, desires and passions in the field of financial management success.

Finding Saasu at CeBIT

So do drop by stand S45, on the main aisle right next to our mates from salesforce.com (in case you have been living in a cave and hadn’t already heard, saasu integrates instantly with salesforce).

We are smack bang in the middle of the main business-software/e-finance/CRM section which takes up most of halls 4 and 5.

Want to know more?

We thought you might so here is a taste of what you will see, watch the videos or read some more
from the CeBIT marketers -

CeBIT Australia 2008 is the largest and most important business-to-business technology event in the region. Join 35,000 business professionals at CeBIT Australia this year to understand, analyse, sample and select the right technology solutions for your business’s future success.

Finding the right solutions has never been easier, CeBIT Australia is organised into 30 show floor categories – ranging from CRM, VoIP, e-Marketing & Search Engine Optimisation, Web Applications to Open Source – making it the number one stop for business professionals seeking the competitive advantage.

* 150 FREE show-floor Seminars
* International Keynote Speakers
* Business Networking
* Interactive Panel Sessions
* 6 High-Level Conferences
* 750+ Solution Providers
* 5000+ Technology Experts
* 30 Show Floor Categories

Visiting CeBIT Australia 2008 will teach you how to make your ICT investment work for you

* Get more out of your website
* Unleash the power 2.0
* Retain your top talent
* Discover online trading
* Slash your communications costs
* See next-gen CRM systems
* Learn about Green IT

And much, much more… most importantly you will arm yourself with knowledge that will give you the power to take your business to next level!

See you @ CeBIT Australia,
20 – 22 May 2008
Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre,
Darling Harbour

Another great software as a service area that crosses over into tangible products is the garment printing industry. Particularly for quality branded corporate clothing.

We started looking for a decent virtual store provider last year and were very impressed with cafepress.com, so much so that we set up the Saasu.com Store with them.

Have a look. If you buy something and send us a photo of yourself wearing it we will give you an extra month’s free subscription or an extra user or file on your saasu.com paid subscription.

Too often we all get caught up with business and forget to make time for the important things. Spontaneously spending time out on the water recently (see nifty professional looking video that anyone can make) was a worthwhile endeavour and prompted some of the big questions in life -

• Why did it take so long for Captain Cook in his ship ‘The Endeavour; so long to find the world’s best harbour in Sydney?
• Why are yachts always ladies?
• Why don’t we do this more often ?
• Why is it so hot?
• How does animoto let you make such great videos in under 10 minutes? Why don’t we use it more often? Why doesn’t every small business use it on their website when it is sooo easy?

Everyone has heard of speed dating - but the new new thing is using it for business. I experienced it in Sydney but it seems to be a global phenomenon…. and a great idea.

Last week was a good example - a crowd of SaaS trendies gathered to hear about a bunch of business solutions at the upmarket Establishment Hotel chaired by our good friends and premier partner - sqwarepeg and was billed as ‘like speed dating for business solutions’.

So how does it work? The format is simple.

Prospective clients register online and get to spend a few minutes with each vendor. Just like real speed dating the convener rings a bell at the end of the allotted time (3 minutes for singles meeting at traditional speed dating or in this case 10 minutes for prospects meeting vendors) and everyone moves on to the next ‘date’. In this case the date was held at a ‘pod’ complete with plasma and internet connectivity with demo SaaS application up and running.

If you are interested in continuing the ‘relationship’ you exchange cards or in true speed dating style write your details on the sheets provided.

Now repeat for each vendor until every prospect has seen every product once.

The great thing about this format is for clients they see a broad section of offerings quickly without risking getting stuck with a boring geek (just like speed dating). For vendors they get to meet a variety of clients and tailor the pitch just a little to stress the client specific needs just enough to follow up later.

Vendors showing at this session were Saasu.com showing our web finance engine (of course), Google showed Adwords, Omniture.com showed their rather cool web analytics (for higher end clients who outgrown Google Analytics), Eloqua, salesforce.com and Sqwarepeg also showed their own products.

The amount of cross-over between vendors was interesting, a good number were using each other’s products.

This event was called the ‘On Demand Circuit’ which is a face to face version of our own nascent online SaaSbay.com - both of which are trying to build the local SaaS ecosystem.

Next time we aim to show the applications interacting and really demonstrate the power of the SaaS ecosystem in action. This will be great e.g. Saasu already talks to salesforce.com and so do other products.

We have been meaning to say thank you to a bunch of people for ages for the great help they have given us. This help is usually in the form of world class technology that we find indispensable, inspiring, innovative or just plain smart. There are a fair mix of open source and commercial products and services mentioned.

For anyone out there running a business this is useful ongoing resource because we will be keeping it up to date and there are some real time and money savers here worth looking at.

So here it is - the official launch of the Saasu Cool List.

If you didn’t make it and think you should have - then tell us.

As part of our continued growth we were fortunate to appoint Peter J Cooper as CEO earlier this year. You may have seen the industry press release at the time and you would certainly have seen a lot of changes he has already driven for us and his regular blog contributions.

Peter has over twenty years financial technology experience most of which has been in senior international roles with blue chip firms. He has also led two globally successful Australian based high growth financial technology firms. His long term incentives were formally ratified by the board and shareholders this week. We welcome Peter aboard.

Saasu stands for Software-as-a-Service utility. Our goal is to simplify business life for you with a range of life changing products. We want to make sophisticated business systems as easy to use as any other utility such as turning on as a water tap or a light switch.

As we grow and move internationally and add other products we thought it was important to introduce an umbrella brand that spans our whole product range.

Most of you would have noticed we have introduced this new name and corporate identity progressively over the last few months as well as a new web site with integrated search and content management system - basically so we can innovate faster.

Some people have suggested U could mean whatever you want it to mean – maybe universal, unique, ubiquitous, or unbelievably easy to use…

Our corporate identity is intended to convey our values – carefully engineered power and sophistication; designed for and delivered with simplicity; a sense of persistent progress or momentum; and continuous innovation – all while being very direct, open, transparent and trustworthy. But it doesn’t matter if you like all that fluff, we still just want to deliver you great service and great value.

We think it suits us. We would like to hear what you think, drop us a comment.

Cheers, The Saasu Team

In all the excitement last month, we forgot to put a blog posting up for our recent CeBIT award which we received at the end of the show. This was a big deal for us. It is a Platinum award which is the highest level and one of only two Platinum awards they hand out.

We beat about 700 companies to get it so not a bad effort. Read the buzz if you like detail.

Cheers, Peter.

We don’t think of ourselves as a Web 2.0 company but somehow we keep getting tagged as one and I suppose a lot of our thinking tries to be contemporary so we consider it a compliment to be named on a ‘Leading Web 2.0 Companies List‘ issued recently on Read/Write Web by Ross Dawson and Richard McManus along with some other fairly cool companies. It might not be as global as the Platinum Excellence in Innovation Award we also won recently but it makes us just as proud! We would have liked to see a bunch of others on the list too (like Campaign Monitor for example which we use here at Saasu). The comments on that list are closed for now so feel free to make some comments on the other links above or comment here and we will pass them on. Cheers, Peter.

We were pleased to have Saasu featured at a course on entrepreneurship last week held by trendy education group FRANK TEAM, around 40 students were there to hear about how to develop their ideas and of course how Saasu can make the journey easier. We thought we’d help the best ones get off the group by sponsoring the event with prizes. We’ll try and profile the best ideas here too. Cheers, Peter.

We’ll be at CeBit for the next few days. Come down and say hi - we’re in Hall 4