(800) 664-9973
OpSource Unveils SaaS Incubator, Removing Barriers for ISVs Eager to Join the Rapidly Growing SaaS Provider Market
Innovative program helps software start-ups adopt and grow their SaaS business in no-cost, risk-free environment
Santa Clara, Calif., December 5, 2005 -- OpSource, the SaaS experts, announced today a bold new initiative to help start-up software companies jumpstart their SaaS businesses risk-free and with no upfront investment. In response to the ground swell of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) now looking to adopt the SaaS model, OpSource has taken the lead in helping these companies overcome the barriers to entry, and created an environment for cultivating further growth in the SaaS ecosystem. The OpSource SaaS Incubator program provides qualified software companies with the key elements needed to deliver their on-demand software products using the SaaS model—a complete infrastructure with a 100% uptime guarantee, basic system monitoring and access to 24x7 technical support. During the six-month incubator period, OpSource provides this complete package free of charge.
OpSource is accepting applications for Incubator tenants in this initial rollout and already has two companies participating in the program, Business Resource Software, a provider of marketing and business planning software, and Citizen Image, an online marketplace for digital images.
"Our customers sought an on-demand version of our strategic planning tool," said Kylon Gustin, vice president of sales, Business Resource Software. "OpSource has the SaaS expertise to create and manage a scalable, reliable, secure infrastructure, and has helped us deliver a solid, high performing environment for our subscription-based customers. The OpSource SaaS Incubator was a perfect fit for us. It gave us a chance to work through the development and deployment issues as we ramp up our customer base, and, OpSource offers a very stable platform that will perform well for our users. We are also developing a relationship with OpSource throughout this process, so when we are ready to go live with a full production version of the software, the OpSource team will fully understand our application and operations, and can add value from day one."
"OpSource's SaaS Incubator is critical to the scalability and reliability of our application," explained Joe Bransom, president, Citizen Image. "The volume of digital images that photographers can contribute is completely unpredictable, and OpSource will enable us to meet the market's demand without a hitch. In addition, we've taken the risk out of building the infrastructure ourselves, and, we've eliminated a major capital expenditure. As a startup, we need to be fiscally responsible, and OpSource has given us the ability to invest our seed funding in areas that will grow our business, such as marketing and sales."
"SaaS is clearly the wave of the future in software delivery, evidenced by the surge of new customers we've signed on in recent months, as well as the increased attention SaaS is receiving in the analyst community," said Treb Ryan, Chief Executive Officer of OpSource. "More and more software companies recognize it's time to get in the game. But for most startups, the cost of building the necessary infrastructure for SaaS is simply too prohibitive. As the leader in SaaS enablement and delivery, OpSource is uniquely positioned to open the door for these companies and help them painlessly adopt SaaS. The OpSource SaaS Incubator program is designed to do just that. By removing the financial hurdles and enabling software companies to prove the benefits of SaaS in a secure, risk-free environment, we are anticipating a sea change in the software industry that is nothing short of revolutionary."
SaaS Incubator Qualifications
To qualify for the OpSource SaaS Incubator program, companies must have annual revenues under $1M, a SaaS application that is in the beta stage of development and a controlled customer base. The Incubator is designed to help companies in the initial months of product readiness build a solid customer base in preparation for launching production-ready software. The application must run on either Windows Server 2003 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. To be considered, interested companies should apply at opsource.net/incubator.
Successful Incubator Tenants Transition to Optimal On-Demand
While in the incubator, early stage ISVs can immediately begin delivering beta versions of their on-demand solutions to end users, on a stable and secure platform, while courting potential investors for the next growth phase. At the end of the incubator period, OpSource will work with participants to ease the transition from the incubator to OpSource's Optimal On-Demand, a complete, market-proven, scalable SaaS delivery solution that features full managed services, application management, a 24x7 call center under the ISV's brand and OpSource's unique Success-Based Pricingsm model. This on-demand pricing allows companies to begin with a minimum commitment, and expenses scale only as the software company grows its customer base and revenues increase. Optimal On-Demand has been adopted by over 40 companies around the world, providing them with high reliability and responsiveness, increased agility, and a lower total cost of ownership compared with perpetual license-based software models.
About Business Resource Software
Business Resource Software, Inc. is the leading provider of strategic planning software, enabling users to develop business plans, audit their business model, optimize sales strategies, and more. They are expanding from packaged software to the SaaS model to provide the ability for strategic plans to be developed and synchronized throughout an entire organization. SyncPlan is an online service that connects effort to objectives at every level of any organization.
About Citizen Image
Citizen Image is an open online marketplace that matches the digital images supplied by photographers with the creative and news media professionals that use them. Creative professionals in corporations and media companies, and the advertising and design agencies that service them, will have access to Creative Image's large repository of rights managed and royalty free images. Editorial professionals will have timely, newsworthy, original images of news events at their fingertips. Citizen Image is scheduled to launch in late January 2006.
About OpSource
OpSource, The SaaS Experts, is solely focused on providing the operational infrastructure and ongoing services that enable software companies to deliver and maintain the highest quality Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. By choosing OpSource as a SaaS partner, the software company is free from infrastructure management and can focus on improving its applications and finding new customers. OpSource's Optimal On-Demandsm infrastructure platform provides immediate and ongoing ROI to software companies and our Optimal Integration service helps ease the transition to SaaS. We enable software companies to deploy SaaS quickly, effortlessly, and without risk. Software companies at any stage in the application lifecycle, delivering any type of application, can benefit from OpSource's comprehensive services and expertise. Our Success-Based Pricingsm model allows companies to begin with a minimum commitment, and expenses scale only as revenue increases. For more information about OpSource, visit opsource.net.
