The 10 Best SaaS Applications for Small Business (Part 1)

The explosion of SaaS and Cloud based applications in the last few years has meant that small and mid-sized business can essentially eliminate or almost eliminate the need for a Data Center, either in-house or third party.  Here's my pick of the best SaaS apps for Small and Medium businesses.

• Email/Collaboration/Messaging and Web Conferencing
  
  Hands down this has to go to Microsoft BPOS (soon to be even better when Office 365 comes out of Beta).  For just $10/month you get hosted Exchange (25GB per Mailbox), SharePoint, Live Communications Server (with free Client) and LiveMeeting.  Learn more at: http://www.microsoft.com/online/business-productivity.aspx
• Anti-Virus and Desktop Management
  
  This one is probably aimed more at the Medium sized business with an internal IT support staff but yet again I'd go with the Microsoft Windows InTune product at $11/month.  Learn more at: http://www.microsoft.com/online/windows-intune.aspx
• Accounting
  
  In a word forget QuickBooks and look to the new and innovative player in the space, FreshBooks.  Hands down these guys beat QuickBooks on usability and functionality.  Learn more at: http://www.freshbooks.com/
• CRM
  
  I have to recommend the Microsoft product here just because the Salesforce people are so darned arrogant and pushy.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 at $34/month is a great product.  Learn more at: http://www.microsoft.com/online/dynamics-crm-online.aspx
• Backup
  
  As a long time personal user of Carbonite I am going to recommend their new Small Business play.  Learn more at: http://www.carbonite.com/en/business/data-backup

Part 2 of this article will look at Social Media and Marketing applications.