Customers only pay for the services they want, and expressHR can scale the solution easily for new users. This level of flexibility is due to the Microsoft Service Provider Licence Agreement (SPLA). Nick Ray, Chief Executive Officer at expressHR, says: “With the Microsoft SPLA, we only pay for software that customers use, there is no upfront investment required, which helps reduce our costs.”

The environment is hosted by Microsoft Gold Certified Partner e.know.net. Raine comments: “By choosing e.know.net, we were able to focus on our core competencies. What’s more, the e.know.net environment is built around Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting for Applications, giving us a secure environment and confidence in meeting our customer service level agreements.”

He adds: “Clients find our services incredibly convenient to use. It doesn’t matter if the company is a small or medium-sized enterprise, or a large organisation—we can scale the service easily to meet their needs.”

The company aimed to drive growth through a closer relationship with Microsoft. “Its technology delivers a successful SaaS model,” believes Raine. “We felt that by highlighting our expertise with a Microsoft environment, our business proposition would become even stronger.”

Solution
In 2006, the company registered for the Microsoft Empower Programme—an initiative that helps ISVs reduce development costs for Microsoft infrastructures. Raine says: “This gave us a great start for building our relationship with Microsoft, not least because it provides a structured programme of technical and online assistance to develop your SaaS environment.”

The Empower Programme became a stepping stone for moving to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status. “This was a logical move for us,” says Raine. “By hosting our application with e.know.net, we were able to focus our energies on becoming a Microsoft Certified Partner and promote our expertise in a highly visible way to potential customers.”

Microsoft ran tests on the performance of the SaaS environment before awarding expressHR partner status. Rain comments: “Normally you have to send your solution to VeriTest, which checks the performance for Microsoft. But Microsoft showed that it understood the needs of a SaaS solution by agreeing for the test to take place onsite at the e.know.net hosting centre.”

As a partner, expressHR now receives additional sales support to help it capitalise on the growing SaaS market—which will be worth U.S.$14.5 billion by 2011, according to analyst company IDC. “We speak at Microsoft conferences about the advantages of moving to a SaaS model because we understand that making this transition can be disruptive for many ISVs, and it can be hard to see the long term business gains at the outset, such as access to new, emerging markets.”

He adds: “We know that there are a number of commercial and technical challenges an ISV can face when moving to a SaaS model, but we found that by partnering with Microsoft we were able to get support across all these areas. For example, there is a structured programme that connects you to a hosting partner, in our case e.know.net.”

Benefits
With Microsoft Certified Partner status, expressHR has increased sales opportunities for delivering SaaS on a Microsoft infrastructure. The company estimates that the number of registered environment users will grow from 100,000 to 130,000 by the end of 2007—primarily because of its partner status and the increased visibility this gives its SaaS expertise.