By R "Ray" Wang on January 25, 2010
Gains In SaaS Adoption Driven By Speed And Cost Savings
Preliminary data from Q4 earnings data show continued traction among SaaS solutions. Expect SaaS deployments to gain steam in 2010 as organizations finalize their SaaS apps strategies to take advantage of 7 key benefits:
- Richer user experience – SaaS apps bring Web 2.0 usability to the enterprise world through rich internet applications using Adobe Air, HTML 5, Microsoft Silverlight, and other tools.
- Rapid implementation – SaaS applications focus on configuration and integration, not hard core implementation. Users can be up in weeks, not months.
- Frequent cycles of innovation - At present, most vendors introduce new functionality, enhancements, and bug fixes on frequent refresh cycles. Some vendors provide as frequent as weekly updates, others – seasonal.
- Minimal upgrade hassles – Users focus on minimal testing scenarios and receive updates all at once. In applications with significant regulatory and tax updates, SaaS applications reduce the cost of compliance by as much as 77%.
- Always on deployment – Organizations can expect average up-time levels at 99.95% or higher for most applications. These results often exceed existing on-premise performance.
- Subscription pricing – Subscription pricing reduces the capital burden of common on-premise payment models.
- Scalability – Organizations can add or subtract users as needed without worrying about procuring new hardware and other infrastructure.
Moreover, latest Information Week Analytics survey reaffirms several key benefits of SaaS adoption – time to market and cost savings (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Information Week Analytics Survey Confirms Trends In Adoption
Yet, Aggregated Information Provides The Real Value To Clients
Despite the obvious benefits with SaaS deployments, three hidden advantages will emerge with market maturity:
Read the complete article @ A Software Insider's Point of View
Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Software | Tagged Adobe Air, Apps Strategy, benchmark performance, benchmarking, bill of rights, business impact, contract negotiations, contract strategy, cost reduction, crm, customer bill of rights, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise applications, enterprise apps, Enterprise apps strategy, Enterprise Business Apps, Enterprise Business Apps Vendors, enterprise software, HTML 5, implementation, information broker, Information On Demand, Information Week, innovation, Microsoft Silverlight, prediction, R "Ray" Wang;, rapid implementation, rwang0, SaaS, SaaS Bill of Rights, SaaS offensive, SaaS strategies, scalability, software as a service, software bill of rights, software contract reviews, software escrow, software licensing, software licesing and pricing, Software Vendors, strategy, subscription pricing, trending, upgrade, usability, User Experience, ux, vendor strategy
R “Ray” Wang is a Partner for Enterprise Strategy at Altimeter Group and the author of the popular enterprise software blog "A Software Insider's Point of View". With viewership in the millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and business models impact the CXO, enterprise apps strategy, vendor selection, software contract negotiations, and emerging business and technology trends. Research topics often focus on business process transformation, next generation ERP, social CRM, Project Based Solutions, Order Management, Master Data Management, analytics, and SaaS/Cloud solutions.
For software vendors, he provides strategic guidance in go-to-market strategies; reviews and designs software licensing, pricing, support, and maintenance policies; delivers competitive assessments; evaluates software partner ecosystems, and researches business processes such as the perfect order and continuous customer management for the enterprise and SMB markets.
Publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, Inc., The Associated Press, CIO Magazine, Information Week, ComputerWorld, Financial Times, eWeek, CRM Magazine, IDG News, ZDNet, TechTarget, and Managing Automation frequently seek his point of view. An energetic and passionate keynote speaker, Ray's appeared on several video outlets including CNBC. In both 2008 and 2009, Ray was recognized by the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) as the Analyst of the Year and in 2009 he was recognized as one of the most important analysts for Enteprise, SMB, and Software. In 2009, A Software Insider's POV was listed in the top 25 of Jonny Bentwood's Technobabble 2.0 Top Industry Analyst Blogs.
