But being candid and showing leadership throughout a crisis is hard and takes leadership from the very top- it's clear that intermedia doesn't have an open and honest communication system that actually works in the event of a disaster... nice!

The reality however is that while Google Apps is great for some things (and I use it heavily), it doesn't suit all organisations- especially those who love Outlook and Exchange. But it's proven time and time again you can't rely on Exchange itself for continuity- and shouldn't promise 100% uptime without it!

JP

It's not just web security that Law firms are choosing SaaS for, but email security too- we have over half the legal 100 as customers at Mimecast.

Healy- your reply hasn't turned up yet but the email has... anyway have you seen Matt Breznia from Xobni write about The 4 Metrics of User Acquisition and the Customer Bulls Eye? http://bit.ly/75GhCh

I'm just adding it to TWIS#7 -This Week in SaaS :)

Great post!
Sounds like you need some sort of marketing automation to control the funnel???? Something like Hubspot, Eloqua or Marketo?
I've blogged about marketing automation for SaaS quite a few times @ http://justinpirie.com

You're spot on Vipul- Customer Acquisition is broader than virality BUT I disagree that word of mouth and referral aren't types of viral marketing. They could be two tactics you use to gain virality.

Have a look at the presentation http://bit.ly/5TtR on slide 13- inflection. That's where existing users DO SOMETHING to attract new users. It doesn't replace a good product (visit in the metrics) but I think people place too much importance on visit i.e. the product instead of thinking how it could be more viral.

Why is virality so important- it's always back to customer acquisition cost- a la bessemer... I love their work but I think it's actually the gaming industries who are showing us the way at the moment...

I foolishly quoted from a post earlier without putting the URL for the whole post- sorry- here it is: http://bit.ly/2porCx

You're spot on Josh.

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago:

Thinking about Customer Acquisition Cost makes Andrew Chen on Viral loop a worthwhile read: http://bit.ly/43f16s

Andrew Chen highlights this presentation on metrics for social games- it seems like the gaming industry is much more willing to share the secrets to success than SaaS players: http://bit.ly/5TtR Mike Dunham and I think gaming in many ways is similar to SaaS, but he reckons the gaming industry is way ahead of SaaS providers in many ways, in terms of platforms, communities, customer acquisition and scale. Something I think I need to pay more attention to.