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SAS introduced a social media analytics program today that will compete against the major metrics players such as Radian 6 and WebTrends. The new service shows once again how blogs and social networks are deeply influencing marketing, customer support and product groups within the enterprise.

The SAS Social Media analytics service is different than many of the social technologies we look at in our coverage. It's a hosted service that SAS builds for the client. The client develops the parameters for what they want to analyze. Rules are established that then server as the framework. Results are viewed through a web page that SAS sets up for the client.

The App store for iPad is live and it includes a number of apps for business use.It's a mixed bag, with media publications alongside apps from Cisco, LinekdIn and Box.net.

We got a demo of the Box.net app, and it provides a glimpse into how the iPad changes the customer experience, compared to the iPhone or a laptop.

Alfresco Software reported record revenues today, providing a signal that open-source technologies are a top choice for the enterprise as the economy moves out of the recession and cloud computing becomes more prevalent.

Alfresco reported both record fourth quarter earnings and record revenues for 2009. Growth is up 61% compared to last year. We look at these results with a grain of salt but in Alfresco's case it increased its staff 29 percent and also added 300 customer, including companies such as Cisco, Merck and the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This SAP story is getting a bit more interesting. Today we sat in in on a call with its team over at StreamWork, the new collaboration, SaaS service, previously known as 12Sprints.

Dave Meyer lead the discussion. For the first time, at least for us, he helped crystalize how SAP will extend its relevancy. Meyer and his team were joined by StreamWork partners -- a curious mix of companies that include Scribd, Evernote and Box.net, not exactly the trio you'd expect to show up as partners with SAP.

The Google Apps Marketplace has launched a YouTube channel to promote its third-party partners.

Less than a third of the vendors have posted videos to the YouTube channel. Google Apps is not rocket science but the idea of integrating third-party applications into Google Apps is a new concept for most customers. The YouTube channel will by no means make an app successful. But it does provide a channel to explain what the product does and how it fits with Google Apps Marketplace. And the video can be used in different channels, too, such as on a blog or Facebook.

IBM, Canonical and Simmtronics will offer emerigng markets a fully loaded, cloud-connected Netbook for $190. It's a clear example of how a cloud-based approach fits with the emerging Netbook market and its importance in the global marketplace as a channel for enterprise collaboration technologies.

The Simmtronics Simmbook will initially be available in South Africa and emerging markets. In addition to African countries, the Simmbook will also be available in India, Thailand and Vietnam.

The effort to bring Facebook into the enterprise continues with more services using Outlook as a gateway to extend a contact network and use as a foundations for a CRM environment.

SenderOK is one of the latest effiorts to give more context to email by showing a picture of the sender in an email message. Too bad it only works on Windows XP or Vista. Ugh.

Novell is providing the first glimpse of Pulse, its new real-time collaboration service. The new service will eventually fully integrate with Google Wave. This version does not include Google Wave as part of its service. But there is an expectation that eventually the integration will serve as a federated platform that may serve as the basis for new open-source collaboration efforts.

Novell is releasing the service initially to analysts and participants at BrainShare, its user group meeting next week in Salt Lake City. Each person will get to invite one new user, Novell will provide a fuller release in the next few months. A release at the end of the year will include OpenID as a core aspect of the platform.

Google Apps is offering migration for Microsoft Exchange. The service is free with Google Apps Premiere or Google Apps Education.

Last July, Google Apps began offering migration from IBM's Lotus Notes. Most enterprises are standardized on either Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes, which means that Google now pretty much can migrate any organization to the cloud. Google also offers connection to Blackberry Enterprise Server.Google Apps is providing migration for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007.

In the world of risk management, it's all about probability. But often, it takes considerable time to get an answer to important questions. But as of late, risk management is seeing a transformation, in most part fueled by the advent of real-time communication.

The most recent example comes from Crowdcast, which has entered into a partnership with SAP's risk management group.