The Salesforce.com of Security

Software as a Service (SaaS) continues to be a trend, as big domains get shifted over to the ASP model. Qualys is one such proponent of SaaS, following the footsteps of its larger and more successful brethren – Salesforce.com and Webex.

One more for the “very” small

Paycycle is addressing the 5.5 Million small businesses with employees fewer than 25 people, with a payroll management service including all sorts of taxes and deductions. This is essentially the same space as Paychex, ADP, and Intuit, only going after the very small businesses. They have 18,500 customers, did $4 Million is sales last year, expecting to double this year, and growing steadily by 100% year-over-year each quarter.

Saluting the “very” small enterprise

Way Systems an extremely simple value proposition, to be able to process transactions using cell-phones! Millions of mobile merchants – from Pizza delivery boys to Avon door-to-door reps to taxis to plumbers – can now become networked!

India, Inc.: Wake up!

What the Chinese are doing is doing leveraged buy-outs on big, fat, powerful American brands reeling under margin pressures, and applying what they do really well: low-cost manufacturing to shave the fat off, while at the same time gaining access to brand power and distribution channels. This leads me to wonder how long India, Inc. will remain asleep at the wheels?

Amidst the VoIP action

https://www.rediff.com/money/2003/nov/03it.htm

P-A-L-M to the boonies?

Wall Street Journal reports that the two Palms are showing signs of wanting to getting back together. “PalmOne Inc. said it is acquiring full rights to the “Palm” brand name and will change its name to Palm Inc. later this year. Milpitas, Calif.-based PalmOne also said Tuesday that it has renewed its license of the

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Boonies may be the next big opportunity

SME. SME. SME. Those Farms and Fisheries in India are mostly SMEs. How big are these segments? Large enough to tip the market share war in Wireless OS that today is dominated by the Symbian OS, with its largescale support from Nokia, in favor of some lesser players like Microsoft and PalmSource? Could these grassroots applications for the bottom of the pyramid become killer apps in the quest for seducing the next billion computer / telecom users?

Oh, and here’s a lead …

For VCs looking for strong product company models, my suggestion is, make a trip to Calcutta (now called Kolkata), the erstwhile capital city of British India, and meet Arvind Agarwal.