SaaS

RSS
Software as a service (SaaS) news, reviews, and tips, including Google Apps, Office 365, Salesforce.com, and other hosted software and services.

SaaS Reviews

  • Review

    Regain a long-missed Twitter feature with classic retweet

    Posted May 26, 2012 - 7:14 am

    Change is never easy, especially when it's one of your favorite services making the changes--and forcing them on you. But, if you're one of the many Twitter users still lamenting the loss of the old-style retweets in the new Twitter, you don't need to be sad any longer. Classic Retweet, a simple Firefox add-on and Google Chrome extension, can return you to the glory days of Twitter's retweet feature, allowing you to append your pithy comments to everything you retweet

  • Review

    Hands-on with Google Docs's new research tool

    Posted May 17, 2012 - 10:08 pm

    Google Docs has unveiled a new research tool meant to help writers streamline their browser-based research, making it easier for them to find and cite the information they need while composing text.

  • Review

    See what people are saying about your business with VenueSeen

    Posted May 2, 2012 - 12:35 pm

    If you own or run a small local business or a franchise such as a restaurant or shop, you probably care about your reputation. Word-of-mouth marketing it nothing new: People are social, and tend to share their experiences. But with new tools such as FourSquare, Instagram, and Facebook, people don't just share: They broadcast, and you should be listening. VenueSeen (plans start at $20/month; 14-day free trial) lets you listen to what people say about your business and look at the photos they share.

  • Review

    Finally! An Office cloud service for iPad worth using

    Posted April 12, 2012 - 6:12 am

    Products like OnLive Desktop have given desktop-as-a-service a bad name; CloudOn may fix that blemish

  • Review

    Manage all your social media from HootSuite

    Posted February 18, 2012 - 8:29 am

    HootSuite is a Web-based service that offers a powerful set of tools for managing multiple social media accounts

  • Review

    Flexing NoSQL: MongoDB in review

    Posted February 8, 2012 - 7:15 am

    MongoDB shines with broad programming language support, SQL-like queries, and out-of-the-box scaling

  • Review

    Free, cloud-based word processor Zoho writer shows promise

    Posted February 7, 2012 - 8:39 am

    Zoho Writer is an online (with offline and syncing functionality) word processing application that offers a nice amount of functionality, especially given the limitations of the Web as a platform for productivity tools. After creating a free account with Zoho, you can access Zoho Writer. It looks a lot like most word processors, so if you've used any major program in this category, it will take no more than a few minutes of poking around to learn how to do things. This is good, because the "Help" is in the form of a FAQ, not a tutorial or index of functions.

  • Review

    OnLive's train wreck: Office on the iPad

    Posted February 7, 2012 - 7:11 am

    The OnLive Desktop service shows just how wrong desktop virtualization can be

  • Review

    For, fast, free file-sharing at work: Get Ge.tt

    Posted January 15, 2012 - 8:56 am

    I spend a lot of time emailing files to folks. Sometimes, it's just a small Word document that I'm firing off to an editor, but often the files are a little heftier, containing multiple images or videos. I often send an email containing all of the files, and then a follow-up message, just to confirm that my oversized message arrived safely. But not anymore: Now I'm using Ge.tt (various pricing, starting at free). This free file sharing service has made my life a whole lot easier.

  • Review

    How iTunes Match stacks up to Google, Amazon music services

    Posted November 24, 2011 - 7:31 am

    With the release of iTunes Match and Google Music becoming available to all, music lovers are starting to move from "Do I want to put my music in the cloud?" to "Of course I do. Which service should I use?" Currently there are three major services in contention for your music--in addition to iTunes Match and Google Music, there's also Amazon Cloud Player. Here's how they compare.

  • Review

    iTunes 10.5 helps you use iTunes less often

    Posted October 17, 2011 - 2:26 pm

    You can set your iPod nano's clock-like interface by it: When Apple ships a major update to iOS, you can bet that an updated version of iTunes is also on the menu. Such is the case with iOS 5 and its companion, iTunes 10.5. (As is Apple's custom, you need the latest version of iTunes to use a new iOS update.)

  • Review

    A quick look at Adobe's Creative Cloud

    Posted October 4, 2011 - 9:54 am

    Adobe Creative Cloud, announced this week at the Adobe Max 2011 annual conference, is a cloud-based software initiative designed to redefine the process of content creation, storage, and sharing, and as a major component of the company's transformation. Creative Cloud is further evidence—in case any more was needed—of Adobe’s recognition that the mobile marketplace is the current and future cornerstone of art and design and is the company’s future.

  • Review

    Review: Google’s new Flight Search service

    Posted September 17, 2011 - 8:54 am

    Google Flight Search looks great but needs a little more work before it can rival specialized flight-search sites.

  • Review

    Google Apps vs. Office 365 vs. Zoho Docs

    Posted August 30, 2011 - 11:36 am

    Now that Microsoft has launched Office 365, it is officially "game on" for online office productivity suites. Microsoft may enjoy a near-monopoly in the desktop office suite market, but online it faces established rivals in the form of Google Apps and Zoho Docs.

  • Review

    Review: Google Apps

    Posted August 30, 2011 - 10:39 am

    Google Apps is firmly established as the primary competitor to Microsoft Office--both the desktop software and the Office 365 online productivity suite. Without question, Google Apps offers a very capable collection of tools, but unless your world revolves around Google, it might not be the right productivity suite for you.

  • Review

    Review: Microsoft Office 365

    Posted August 30, 2011 - 10:35 am

    Microsoft Office 365 is the company’s answer to online productivity suites. A replacement for Microsoft’s Business Online Professional Services, Office 365 includes online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as Lync and SharePoint. Together, these comprehensive and powerful online office tools represent the best overall value you can find today.

  • Review

    Review: Zoho Docs

    Posted August 30, 2011 - 9:59 am

    Among online productivity suites, Zoho Docs brings a unique third-party perspective to the mix. Microsoft and Google are each entrenched in their own cultures and tools, but Zoho Docs takes a more flexible cross-platform approach, and it adds some innovative features that are worth considering.

  • Review

    Vulnerability management tools in a nutshell

    Posted August 3, 2011 - 2:02 pm

    Capsule reviews of Critical Watch, eEye, Lumension, Qualys, McAfee and SAINT.

  • Review

    7 days in the cloud: My week with the Samsung Chromebook

    Posted July 18, 2011 - 7:39 am

    Steven Vaughan-Nichols recently spent a week working with nothing but a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook. Here is a day-by-day accounting of what he found. It's a tale of both triumph and tragedy. Well, OK, so it's really a story of what worked and what didn't work, but you get the idea.

  • Review

    Review: Office 365 vs. Google Apps

    Posted June 28, 2011 - 9:20 am

    With Office 365 now available in final form, here's what you need to know to decide if Office 365 or Google Apps (or neither) is right for your organization

  • Review

    Cloud fight! Amazon Cloud Drive vs. Google Docs vs. Microsoft Skydrive

    Posted April 1, 2011 - 1:43 am

    How does the new kid on the cloud storage block stack up against the established players?

  • Review

    Google Apps vs Microsoft BPOS, Office 365: Part 3

    Posted March 30, 2011 - 8:30 pm

    The shortfalls of Google Apps will likely resonate with the inordinate amount of Microsoft shops in the industry. Years of investment in SharePoint developers, Exchange support teams and business processes built around the fickle aspects of Microsoft Office and its ribbon interface cannot be discarded easily. That’s ultimately where Microsoft’s strength is likely to reside. No matter when its Office 365 bundle is released, and despite numerous attempts to forge links between legacy applications and Google Apps, the complexity of a migration for a large organisation would likely be a headache most CIOs are eager to avoid. At least, that can be said for Coca Cola Amatil CIO, Barry Simpson.

  • Review

    VMware makes cloud jumping easy

    Posted March 14, 2011 - 9:49 am

    VMware's vCloud Connector (VCC) is a free VMware virtual appliance and vSphere plug-in that makes it a snap to transfer VMware virtual machines, templates and vApps between clouds.

  • Review

    Manage Google Storage with CloudBerry Explorer

    Posted February 4, 2011 - 10:25 pm

    Manage Google Storage with a full-featured standalone client.

  • Review

    Google Chromebook: The good, the bad, and the beta

    Posted February 2, 2011 - 10:14 am

    When Google first started giving away the Cr-48 in early December, lots of reviewers posted their first impressions after driving the Chromebook around the block a couple of times. We’ve taken the Chromebook out on a two-month test drive to see how it performs in real-world conditions.
More Reviews on SaaS

SaaSWhite Papers & Webcasts

White Paper

Free Trial: vRanger, the Powerful VMware Recovery Solution

When disaster strikes, don't waste hours and dollars recovering critical data. vRanger delivers blazing-fast speed and granular recovery for your VMware applications and data. Get your free trial today.

Webcast On Demand

Enabling your service desk to be the front face to IT

Your service desk should be the one stop shop for internal and external customers. But, in order for IT to be the orchestrator of knowledge and the service catalog, you need to provide excellent service and quick response times.

Sponsor: Nimsoft

White Paper

Unified IT Monitoring & Management in Your Environment

At the very start of the IT industry, "monitoring" meant having a guy wander around inside the mainframe looking for burnt‐out vacuum tubes.

Webcast On Demand

Configure, Don't Customize Your Service Desk

Join Pink Elephant Analyst George Spalding and Nimsoft Service Desk expert Tim Rochte to learn the perils of customizing your service desk and losing flexibility to adapt to business changes.

Sponsor: Nimsoft

See more White Papers | Webcasts

Ask a Question