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Reality Check: Software as a Service

Joe Maglitta | Date: 08-14-09 | Comments

Pressure to reduce capex and strain on IT staff drive big growth, especially in content and collaboration apps. Highlights from the �Real SAAS� virtual trade show.

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Reality Check: Software as a Service
Cloud hype aside, more than three-fourths of U.S. organizations will deploy at least one software as a service application for business use this year, primarily to reduce capital expenditures and demand on IT staff. Content, communications and collaboration apps have overtaken CRM as the most popular SAAS application.

Those are just a few reality checks from yesterday�s highly successful Ziff Davis Enterprise Real �Real SAAS� Virtual Trade show. The day-long online conference united top industry analysts, IT leaders and Ziff Davis Enterprise writers and editors to examine the good, the bad and the ugly of this important emerging software delivery mode. The event featured results from a new Ziff Davis Enterprise SAAS survey of more than 700 IT organizations.

Pain is SAAS Ally

Hard times, it seems, are good for SAAS. In fact, SAAS thrives in down cycles, noted Robert Mahowald, SAAS research director at IDC. Just as the 2000-01 downturn helped Salesforce.com get started, current pressures on IT spending, especially capital, are driving SAAS uptake. IDC recently forecast 42 percent growth this year, driven by growing ecosystems of distributors and integrators and the robust sales pipelines of big vendors (Salesforce.com, IBM, Microsoft) as well as pure-play vendors such as Concur, Netsuite, Salesforce.com and Taleo.

The following are some show highlights. To view the complete keynote presentation and other recorded sessions, visit the SAAS VTS site.

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