Here’s a round-up of three that I know of that focus on enterprise data (including Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft applications):

• Jitterbit
• Talend
• SnapLogic

Of the three, Jitterbit is my favorite so far.  They seem the most advanced in terms of capabilities, and their editor UI looks the cleanest.  I haven’t spent much time playing with all of them yet, though, so I’m not sure what the pros/cons are of each of them (yet).

It’s interesting to note that all three of the ones I mentioned are offered as open source.  Most of them offer free tools for smaller scale projects, and an enterprise version for larger projects.

And then there’s Gnip, which seems like a good solution for SaaS providers to create data endpoints that only get polled when data is updated, rather than periodic polls that often end up in empty sets.

As I’ve written before, the downturn in the economy is a prime time for companies who are looking to invest in new ERP, CRM and productivity systems to consider SaaS instead of a on-site hosted solution.  The pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-grow model of SaaS means that companies would have an easier time forecasting exactly how much they’ll need to spend on software, although it ultimately shifts the burden of capital expenditures (CapEx) to the SaaS provider.  It’s true, though, that companies will likely become skittish about making any large investments in SaaS in a rocky economy.

As Dignan points out:

… the SaaS sector is likely to look like the rest of the software industry–the big companies will benefit in a downturn. Simply put, you’ll buy from a company you know can take a punch. In SaaS, that means Salesforce.com can take more share. Smaller fish may have to show their bank accounts to skittish CIOs.

Meanwhile, Matt Asay over at CNET News suggests that the best way to calm customer’s fears is to open source the original code, rather than offering to put it in escrow at all, the same way that SugarCRM does.

I’m not so sure about the latter approach of offering the source code up as open source, especially because as Matt points out, it diminishes the value of the assets the vendor.  It could also inadvertently give leverage to competitors that figure out how to provide hosting services and infrastructure at costs underneath the vendor’s.  Not to mention, as Dignan points out in his post: who really asks for code that was in escrow, anyways?

Ultimately I think the right approach is the one that Vinnie Mirchandani suggested: data portability first and foremost.  But I think data portability matters for a few other reasons, too:

1.) It prevents companies who invest in SaaS from feeling like they are locked into one particular suite or service provider.

2.) It creates value-add opportunities for other SaaS players to re-mix company data.  Imagine, for example, being able to explore my company’s financial data hosted in one provider with a business intelligence tool provided by another, without having to do any complex wiring or custom coding between the two.  Or being able to wire specific triggers inside of business applications to external workflow services.

3.) Companies should be able to own sensitive data internally if they decide they want to, and this could make many folks who are sensitive about where data lives today less anxious in general.

4.) One of the big problems today with existing business software is already the silos it tends to create by not offering enough entry points to business data.  If anything, SaaS providers’ motto when it comes to data is: the more ways to slice and dice it, the better.  Isn’t that what SOA (service oriented architecture) was all about?

The site for Oxite admits that this isn’t meant to be much more than a very large example of what can be done with ASP.NET.  And it’s actually a probably a good way to sell more licenses of Visual Studio, since you really can’t change a whole lot about Oxite without Visual Studio to compile changes.  It also might help folks understand the MVC model in .NET a little better, although I doubt it’ll win any Ruby on Rails converts.

Oxite comes with all the typical blog features you’ve come to expect from MoveableType, Typepad, or WordPress, such as trackbacks, pings, comments, permalinks, etc., etc.  It also integrates well with Windows Live Writer, which if you haven’t used already, you really, really should.  Not to digress, but Windows Live Writer is actually pretty cool tool for bloggers.  (Yeah, I may criticize Microsoft when they’re making bad technology decisions, but I’ll give them props when they’re doing good.)

Anyway, Oxite is probably worth a look if you’re into that whole .NET world, otherwise you’ll probably want to stay away from it like the plague.