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SaaS Is a Four-Letter Word for SMBs Although SaaS solutions are often touted as ideal for SMBs, many smaller businesses still hesitate to explore the on-demand model, according to a new survey conducted by IDC. "The Adoption of Software as a Service in Small and Medium Businesses: Perception Versus Reality" finds the market for SaaS to be growing rapidly despite SMBs' enduring fear regarding data security. IDC recommends that vendors selling on-demand solutions do so by highlighting how the applications can solve business problems rather than attempting to use SaaS itself as a selling point.

Siebel Continues to Fly Solo as a Leader Oracle-owned Siebel Systems has continued its dominance in Gartner's assessment of the service and support market; the outfit has yet again maintained its footing as the only player included in the leaders quadrant in Gartner's "Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers, 2007." The quadrant was previously named the "Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service and Support (CSS) Applications."

Virtual Customer Contact If BT and Avaya have their way those mirrored suburban office buildings filled with contact centers will soon be a thing of the past, as employees scatter across smaller centers and work from home. The telecom giants have paired to launch BT Avaya OnNet, a service that hosts contact center technology offsite for larger companies. OnNet customers will typically be companies with about 750 contact center seats and with sites in different countries and regions, according to the companies.

SMBs Love Web 2.0 While analysts continue to argue over the definition of Web 2.0 and many large companies avoid it like the security-breach plague, SMBs are willing and eager to go forth with Web 2.0 initiatives, according to a new report from Access Markets International (AMI) Partners. The study finds that 40 percent of all SMBs are already using Web 2.0 technology. AMI expects that, because even more SMBs are ready to integrate Web 2.0 into their business plans, this percentage will continue to grow.

Centric CRM Updates Its Offerings Centric CRM has released an updated version of its flagship product, Centric CRM 4.1, which comes fresh with expanded database support and new workflow best practices. The improvements are designed to add continued scalability to Centric's product lineup. "The vision has always been to create a solution for small business, but also has the horsepower and scalability to run on any database," says Michael Harvey, CMO and vice president of corporate development for Centric CRM. (For the full stories and more news, visit destinationCRM.com.)

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