Page 1 of 2
Selling software as a service (SaaS) continues to pick up steam, particularly among small and midsize businesses, where many companies can't afford to purchase and maintain their own applications and systems, or lack the IT staff to support them. In turn, for many VARs and their customers, managed services and SaaS are helping to support another, perhaps unintended, major trend: server consolidation.
A growing number of VARs plan to provide SaaS as more of these services become available from major IT vendors, such as IBM and Oracle, as well as from smaller players. According to VARBusiness' 2005 State of Software survey, roughly 45 percent of service providers plan to sell software as a subscription-based service during the next 12 months. That's more than twice as many as those that provide SaaS today.
For its part, research firm IDC predicts that spending on SaaS will continue to rise during the next five years at a 21 percent compound annual growth rate, reaching $10.7 billion in 2009. IDC expects much of SaaS' adoption to be driven by four factors: organizations' need to improve business processes, an increased understanding of the SaaS delivery model, growth in the number of SaaS offerings, and the creation of enablement programs to help ISVs take advantage of SaaS opportunities.
At the same time SaaS is taking hold at many companies, server consolidation--or the avoidance of new server purchases--has been gaining ground as organizations look for ways to cut IT infrastructure costs. Among the main reasons for the consolidation efforts, says analyst firm Gartner, is to reduce total cost of ownership, improve manageability (security, availability, disaster recovery), provide better service and improve agility.
Laurie McCabe, vice president of SMB insights and business solutions at AMI-Partners, says SaaS might not lead to immediate and widespread server reductions. But, she says, it could help reduce the number of servers at many organizations.
|
10 Hot Items From CES 2012 Opening Night CRN provides a look at 10 items that caught our eye on opening night of CES 2012. |
|
10 Weird, Wacky And Wonderful Things To See At CES 2012 CRN takes a look at the weirdest, wackiest, and intriguing products and events happening at this year's CES. |
|
25 Must-See Products At CES 2012 It's that time of year again. Here are 25 hot items on tap for the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. |
 More
Slide Shows |
