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:
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Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Technology / 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, 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, rapid implementation, 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 (pronounced WAHNG) is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research, Inc. He’s the author of the popular business strategy and technology blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View”. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at institutions such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. His best selling book, Disrupting Digital Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press provides insights on why 52% of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt, or fallen off the list since 2000.
Wang is a prominent dynamic keynote speaker, research analyst, and industry commentator working with clients to transform their business models using exponential technologies. He’s spoken around the world at almost every tech related conference including keynotes for tens of thousands of people and intimate executive settings such as Davos. Ray’s clients include a majority of the Fortune 500 and Global 200.
Ray is well quoted in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, FoxBusiness, CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, CGTN, Tech Crunch, Business Week, and Fortune. He has thrice won the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) Analyst of the Year Award and has repeatedly been in the #1 slot in the AR Power 100 list for over 10 years. Ray resides in Silicon Valley when not traveling 500,000 miles a year in the air.
