Earlier today, Alistair Croll from GigaOm posted a blog entry listing the 7 criteria that should be used when evaluating a vendor, and I think it is spot on. (begin shameless promoting) Last year we launched the Collective Intelligence Platform to function as a content targeting system with a robust API that can accept plugins from third party applications and distribute content to any channel including, web, mobile, email, call center, and more (end shameless promoting). In all seriousness, without the release of this platform I wouldn’t be pointing to this article because we definitely wouldn’t meet these criteria.

Without further adieu here is the list of 7 criteria from GigaOm:

• Adaptability: How easily can you modify the application? This can be as simple as adding fields or building dashboards, or as advanced as a programming platform.
• Reliability: How much can you depend on the system to function well? This boils down to four things: Performance, availability, scalability and security.
• Task productivity: How effectively can your users accomplish their goals? How many cases-per-minute or entries-per-day can workers do, and how many errors do they make?
• Price: How much will it cost — really? Because SaaS offerings are so varied in pricing, it’s hard to compare them. A better model is to create several benchmark subscribers (a 10-, 100-, and 1,000-person organization) and compare upfront and ongoing costs for them.
• Back-end integration: Can you plug it in to other things? Any enterprise SaaS offering will have to work with other systems, for everything from authentication to data sharing.
• Longevity: How long will the SaaS company be around, and what’s your exit strategy? With ISVs, you could ask for software in escrow. But as the sudden disappearance of Coghead shows, when a SaaS provider closes down, your entire IT systems can vanish with the flick of an “off” switch. Offers from Intuit and others to help stranded customers notwithstanding, this is a big problem.
• Ecosystem: How many third-party developers and integrators surround a particular platform with plug-ins and add-ons, and how active are they? A vibrant ecosystem means a more extensible, flexible solution.

Fortunately, I can say with confidence that Baynote satisfies each of these criteria. I’m not going to go through each item line by line, since these 7 criteria have different implications for each business. However, our sales team will be happy to do just that. Contact them here.