Line of Business Execs Frequently Buy SaaS Services in Enterprise

A Forrester Research survey of 1,000 firms in North America and Europe recently found that 23 percent of firms use software as a service, with 11 percent of these respondents indicating that they are expanding usage. An additional eight percent planned to implement SaaS within a year’s time frame.

The greatest SaaS usage is in horizontal business process areas, such as customer relationship management or human relations, says Liz Herbert, Forrester Research analyst. But sales automation, customer support, recruiting and performance management in the cloud also are being used in a SaaS mode.

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Geosocial Business Hinges on Mobile Devices

If you look at this graphic, mobile devices are at the center, the applications enabled by mobile devices are orbiting.

That neatly illustrates the issue mobile service providers face. They are fundamental to the ecosystem, but it is the devices at the center, not so much the connectivity, though connections also are essential.

That observation also applies to direct revenue models.

Ghana, Kenya, Philippines, Tanzania Top Mobile Banking Countries in Developing World

Ghana, Kenya, the Philippines and Tanzania have achieved mobile banking adoption rates above 10 percent of their population, according to the World Economic Forum.

Scale in mobile financial services is missing: World Economic Forum

BilltoMobile Launches Global Carrier Billing

BilltoMobile, the leading provider of carrier billed payments for online purchases in the United States, is launching its BilltoMobile payment service globally, offering U.S.-based online digital goods and services merchants the ability to process web purchases on 200 carriers in more than 60 countries.

BilltoMobile says it is the leading e-commerce mobile payments platform in the U.S., and is contracted with the top three U.S. carriers (Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint) for its "Direct Carrier Billing" service.

BilltoMobile merchants now have access to more than 200 mobile operators and billions of mobile subscribers in the EU, Asia and South America. The new global service offering will launch next month.

BilltoMobile Launching Global Mobile Payments Offering Covering 200 Carriers in More Than 60 Countries

Liberty Media offers $1 billion for Barnes & Noble

Liberty Media has offered $17 per share to buy all of Barnes & Noble.

The company, which operates 720 bookstores, as well as a chain of college campus stores, might seem an unlikely fit for Liberty Media, an owner of video content networks. But sometimes one has to look under rocks to find diamonds, Liberty Media seems to think.

Liberty Media might see the value in the Nook reader and the app store, as well as the potential for online commerce. In that view, the bookstores are just a way to generate cash flow, while the strategic assets are the online commerce and apps capability, plus the Nook.

Liberty Media offers $1 billion for Barnes & Noble | Reuters

Can Telcos Build a Transaction Business Out of Their Platform?

As telco executives continue to look for significant revenue opportunities, they seem to have latched onto mobile commerce, payments and transactions as a logical possible business.

In fact, say analysts at Telco 2.0, seven questions can be answered by mobile network operators, and each answer can contribute to one or more revenue streams.


It also is worth noting that other application or device providers will be able to answer some, and in some cases, many of the same questions, though. 


That’s why Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon and PayPal already are getting ready for their own transaction services and applications.



Still, the ability to answer questions still might prove the foundation for new transaction-based businesses. Among the key questions are:



Who are you?
Where are you?
How are you?
Do you have credit?
How can we reach you? Operators not only can reach you via their own communications services, but often can associate together multiple addresses or identifiers.
Who do you know?
Any questions?



http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/03/telcos_future_in_seven_questio.html