So far, the New Year hasn’t been a happy one for software as a service stocks. Our SaaS 20 Stock Index fell 3.16 percent for the week ended January 16, and the index is now down 3.92 percent since the New Year. While MSPmentor remains upbeat about SaaS opportunities for managed service providers, investors remain cautious.

Big-name SaaS companies like Salesforce.com (CRM, down 12.12 percent year to date) and RightNow (RNOW, down 15.14%) remain under pressure on Wall Street because investors are worried about the “cost” of acquiring and retaining new customers. Salesforce.com will spend this week demonstrating cloud solutions at Lotusphere in Orlando, and RightNow is expected to announce quarterly results on Feb. 4.

Despite continued weakness in our SaaS 20 Stock Index, there’s no doubt that SaaS is catching on with managed service providers. Nearly 60 percent of MSPs currently offer hosted/SaaS email while 18.4 percent say they offer customers some form of hosted/SaaS CRM system, according to the annual MSPmentor 100 survey.

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