Veterans and newcomers look to the battles ahead, as the shortlist for this year's Software Satisfaction Awards is published. John Stokdyk and Jon Wilcox report.
Over 8,100 people have taken time out to judge their business software for this year’s Software Satisfaction Awards 2009 making it one of the biggest pieces of business opinion research in the UK. Now in its fourth year, the award winners are voted for by the members of Sift Media's communities, including BusinessZone.co.uk, AccountingWEB.co.uk, and Finance Week.
The shortlist of contenders has now been released, revealing the vendors vying for one of 17 product awards at this year’s ceremony. Taking place at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 8 October, the Software Satisfaction Awards 2009 covers a range of products including HR and training solutions, resellers, and accounting and finance. This year, three additional awards will be handed out at the ceremony, including a prize for supplier of the year.Following an increasing trend, Cloud Computing has seen a surge of vendors in the shortlist, with Kashflow, and Liquid Evolution just two of the names with their sights on the small business accounting category. They, along with fellow SaaS provider Arithmo, go up against a lone on-premise provider in the shape of Diamond Discovery.
The ‘David versus Goliath’ encounters between upstarts and veterans, and SaaS and on-premise, is replicated across the board. The small business CRM category in particular, is shaping up to be titanic battle of SaaS vs SaaS, with Really Simple Systems facing up to the Cloud Computing superpower that is SalesForce.com – in not one, but two categories (SME CRM and web-hosted CRM). SalesForce.com actually appears in all four CRM categories, so can it attain a Grand Slam in 2009?
The 2009 awards will see a number of past winners try to retain their crowns, including NetSuite, whilst age-old rivals (such as the Octopus vs. Select HR & Cascade) once again stare across the battlefield from each other. MoneySoft’s Payroll Manager could make it three years on the trot in the small business category, though the software will reignite its long-standing SSA battle for the top spot against Pegasus Opera II (a mid-range solution) and last year’s Payroll runner-up, 12Pay.
The Software Satisfaction Awards 2009 are shaping up to be the biggest and best yet, so make sure you stay tuned for the results. The battle lines have been drawn. The armies are amassing. The final showdown takes place on 8 October.
To see what happened at last year's ceremony, watch the video below.
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