Devnet Cloud View & Web Industry News

Gartner released its review of Software-As-A-Service on the 20th October 2008, and it outlined that SAAS sales for the enterprise market are predicted to surpass $6.4 billion this calendar year.  The report noted that market is just starting to feel the tightening of corporate budgets, which could mean a spending drop as the economy moves towards a gloomy 2009.  But products such as Google Apps continue to remain strong and have seen an uplift in countries such as Australia. 

The Gartner SAAS report outlines that the market has grown 27% since 2007, and with the market expecting to double by 2012.  The SAAS revenue will top $14.8 billion as companies move towards spending less on servers, storage and related IT equipment.  SAAS suites such as Google Apps Premier Edition will account for 9% of software revenue by 2012 and will continue to coexist with installed applications such as Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes. 

A number of SAAS solutions are popular because they are “freeware” but these applications are not a bulk of SAAS sales.  The second largest segment of the SAAS enterprise market is Customer Relationship Management “CRM” software such as SalesForce.com, SugarCRM & NetSuite. 

Based on current trends, Gartner expects worldwide software markets to grow at around 10% through to 2012, and in worst case scenario 9.4%. 

Don’t expect a gold rush for SAAS but think of it as a cloud with a silver lining.  Devnet are Google’s Asia-Pacific partners for Google Apps Premier Edition & Google Apps for Associations, contact them today to talk about how your business can benefit from the SAAS silver lining.