Today, software-as-a-service is pretty much a separate, disparate system. What I am really trying to say is … what kind of things can we do that integrate SaaS and on-premise into one operation?
Most businesses start with on-premise software and bring in SaaS solutions one application at a time, but as they convert more applications to SaaS, IT administrators have to juggle multiple applications of each type, which can be an hinderance to wider adoption of SaaS.
In fact, 65 percent of IT administrators surveyed by the research firm IDC cited integration issues as the top barrier to SaaS adoption, according to a Dec. 10, 2008, article, "Want SaaS? Get Integration First!” on the Web site www.destinationCRM.com. If these integration problems can be solved, companies may convert more applications to SaaS.
Typically, businesses convert e-mail management to SaaS first, because the world uses things like Yahoo, google Mail and they are used to the concept of e-mail from the cloud. Next they may convert sales force automation or customer relationship management applications to the SaaS model: salesforce.com, siebelondemand are common synonyms in this space. Off late we see lot of traction on BI as SaaS offering catching speed. From traditional BI vendors like SAP/BOBJ, Cognos to upcoming vendors like Pivotlink, AnalytixOnDemand, are offering enterprise class BI applications on demand.
By and large businesses are more likely to keep industry-specific, proprietary or highly sensitive applications on-premise. One key area or rather gap that emerges is smoother integration of data and applications.
Smoother will also expose more businesses to the overall benefits of SaaS, such as
- fewer software management responsibilities; included updates, bug fixes and other maintenance;
- access for small-to-medium sized businesses to enterprise-level applications.
- SaaS also offers scalability,
Trend is emerging where existing integration technologies are maturing towards SaaS offering under "Integration As Service" banner.
This is so true. Integration Services in a SAAS model can really be a differentiator - today we all do some sort of integration projects. The marketplace is so crowded and lines blurry between EAI, ESB, BPM (from a purely product perspective, not conceptually) - that a cloud offering of such a service, might just have the market potential that is clouding the product categories mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if folks think that integration is the key barrier to SAAS, (which I am not sure II fully agree with), what better to prove it wrong, by offering an Integration service in the cloud.