Los Angeles has been at the forefront of SaaS progress.  Los Angeles is in a prime position to capitalize on all great developments regarding SaaS.  For one, it has the required information technology infrastructure needed for operating a SaaS business.  It has a steady supply of information technology graduates who look for jobs within the area’s SaaS business that’s currently numbering in the hundreds.  It is no fluke that the world’s top grossing SaaS companies are either headquartered in and around Los Angeles: Oracle, Digital Insight, and the Trizetto Group.  Los Angeles is also home to a lot of successful SaaS startups. As a matter of fact, the 2008 list of fastest growing companies in Los Angeles had more than its share of SaaS companies.

The business environment in Los Angeles has also been more conducive to SaaS companies, with a number of venture capitalist firms in the area that guarantees initial funding to most startups, and continuing capital to a lot of existing information technology firms in the area.  The only question remaining is if the demand would match the potential.

The answer is a big and loud YES.

It is widely believed that the market for Software as a Service application matured in 2008, with more and more applications hitting the mainstream market. This was also the time when more and more enterprises and businesses were looking into a transfer to the SaaS platform.  Estimates have put the annual market for SaaS applications worldwide to be at $6.4 billion and that is set to double in just four years.  Recent studies have also shown that the migration—at least among larger companies—started at this high time.  Kelton Research reported in June 2008 that around 75% of executives from big companies said that their companies have already adopted SaaS applications or plans to adopt SaaS applications in the near future.

On a national scale, SaaS has been given a boost by the rise of collaborative technologies and interoperability.  The driving force behind both is the Internet, making SaaS a natural offshoot.  SaaS has also seen a rise in the number of adopting companies, propelled in part by the participation of big names in offline and online computing—Google, IBM, Microsoft, etc.—have offered SaaS services and platforms.

Additionally, most enterprises and businesses nowadays will find SaaS more attractive.  With the economy in a very dismal state, most companies will be balking at the upfront cost of buying, developing or maintaining software.  SaaS is a very prominent fixture in cloud computing where it is the vendor who shoulders the cost of developing and deploying any infrastructure—software, programs, servers, etc.—instead of the end user.  Further, the cost is not the only main reason why SaaS should be very popular in an economic recession, but also implementation and support issues.  Availing of software as a service platform can ensure that the end user will have only experts and professionals, who know the infrastructure inside-out (sometimes, even the same ones who developed it), do the implementation, deployment, customization, maintenance, even repair and troubleshooting of the same.  This not only takes away the headache of running the system, but also saves the end user in a myriad of costs, like hiring an expensive programmer, systems administrator, or other professionals to run the systems.  Many people have likened cloud computing and SaaS to the electricity you receive from your local electric company wherein you enjoy the benefits of having electricity without knowing how power turbines, hydroelectric generators, windmills work to produce electricity nor anything about how electricity is supplied and distributed.  All you need to know is how to pay for it, and the electric company will take care of everything.

All these are highlighted by the recent win of Barack Obama, who has vowed to limit offshore outsourcing to create jobs and bring jobs back home.  The limit would make SaaS even more attractive because it functions in a manner that is very like outsourcing.

It may take a while before SaaS applications overtake PCs and rob it of its status as the center of the computing universe, but indicators are pointing to that direction.  If not a full implementation of SaaS, companies are bound to look into this service to cut their costs and increase their efficiency.  With this uptake, Los Angeles is bound to become known as the SaaS capital of the country, if not the world.

As the cost of hosting hardware and connectivity goes down and web-based services such as Google Docs, Zoho, or Picnick became more available, the idea of using the Web as an alternative to desktop productivity became more popular. These developments in the past couple of years have made doing everything online and storing nearly everything online made web-based services more popular, such that when SaaS first came into view, it became relatively easy to sell it both as an idea and as a practice that is necessity to business operations.

Still, much of businesses that have sizable IT departments prefer to do it “old skul” and create things in-house and going so far as hiring consultants to develop applications both on-shore and offshore. What gives?

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Innovation in software is a key driver toward the onset of modern technology. In the same manner, the upsurge of Web-based services and technologies are a pivotal factor. As such, Software as a service or SaaS has effected a change in software technology for companies and organizations of varied sizes. SaaS has opened up opportunities for otherwise traditional business solutions. 

SaaS has made both small-scale trade organizations and large corporations recognize that there are other options to approach the software and technology aspect of their businesses.  As it gains the nod of most mainstream opinions, SaaS is taking an upsurge.  Software analyst Jeff Kaplan has pointed out how SaaS is widely accepted by most users and getting good reviews from the likes of famed Information Technology business guru Nicholas Carr to software application peers at the Wall Street.

Industry analysts and strategists vouch that the SaaS is soon to tip the software application scale to its favor as the new age unfolds. Phil Wainewright and THINKStrategies tell it straight:

1. In an apparent struggle to keep operations afloat, industrial sectors necessitate a business solution to keep them on-track of the funds that go into IT. SaaS pay-as-you-go set-up translates to a low-risk trade, giving its vendors the competitive edge as budgets are trimmed. Goldman Sachs, for example, has pointed out that those new applications, which offer significantly lower costs of ownership, are attractive – just like SaaS.

2. Leveraging utility computing offered by SaaS answers the escalating frustrations of end-users on the costs and hassles of IT management. Storage servers and systems “virtualized” with speedier networks, fresh software systems for automated monitoring, provisioning, ticketing, billing or trouble-shooting makes IT management less of a headache for corporations. Additionally, through the virtualization technology, SaaS has become an easy way, especially on the part of independent software vendors.

3. Large corporations have leveraged the money being poured out for their workforce, and finding SaaS as a lucrative option to in-house IT management is a breather. Similarly, monitoring their own IT requirements and outsourcing only specific functions translate to savings in operational costs.

4. Service providers have recognized the importance of simple yet customizable packaging and pricing of their software products to readily address specific customer needs.

5. With the SaaS model, providers and vendors innovate quicker than others, as they need not attend to the older versions, but focus on newer versions. SaaS providers are mushrooming in the software industry.

6. SaaS introduced innovation in the delivery and sale approach by providers.  Consultation-skilled sales and support staff replaces product-focused sales crew and maintenance-oriented people. In particular, SaaS vendors are obliged to make the entire system work through having the in-depth knowledge of the SaaS platform in terms of configuration, data and usage patters. Automatically, a fix is created and deployed to customers.

 7. SaaS is reaping good reviews from the mainstream IT enterprise. Case studies have revealed that SaaS means reliability in IT solutions compounded with that revenue generating and cost saving approach.

8. End-users or customers figure out for themselves how to utilize the SaaS for business benefits. Dissimilar to older software application models, SaaS allows a customer to know the product in the context of a “real-world.” 

9. Being a Web-based offering, SaaS removes the constraints in running the application. It becomes a more interactive way of managing business on the IT level. Essentially, a SaaS solution has a built-in monitoring system, which tracks errors and notifies vendors of errors, failure reports, and similar problems received by end-customers. In turn, SaaS vendors proactively fix these issues, as satisfaction, usage and adoption of users with respect to SaaS are the measures of profitability in their business.

10. SaaS platforms thrive, but are not stagnant. The more that SaaS penetrates the mainstream IT, the more that SaaS vendors will offer better and more effective platforms for corporations or enterprises that are interested to build SaaS.

In the overall, SaaS offers a beneficial element of ownership experience for customers, alongside offering the challenge for vendors to make SaaS work as an innovative, adaptive business solution. For these reasons, analysts see an imminent domination of SaaS in the new age of software application. 

The Internet-based SaaS application model has driven significant vendors, providers and customers toward itself in the recent years. A number of software vendors now offer software application versions to their clients with payments that are arranged on a monthly basis. SaaS has become a huge in providing effective business solution to its customers in a simple way, obstructing the complexity that the business solution is, in fact, made of. Non-apparent and inconspicuous are the tremendously complex software, hardware and engineering applied to the SaaS. The SaaS model’s simple interface has hidden it all.
 
The SaaS model has emerged not just as a practical business solution for internal organization operations, but also for the mobile arena. Mobile SaaS aims to haul out the complexity in the system in order to provide high-end and efficient end-customer experience at a flat per-month rate. Businesses that run on handheld devices recognize that the value in Mobile SaaS is pertinent. This is because, with the countless hardware pieces in wireless-ready access that are distributed worldwide, the task is lighter when applications are simply “transmitted” as opposed to the equipment being hauled to the IT system for installations or upgrades. As the process suggests, the end-customer is the judge of the effectiveness or otherwise of mobile application utilities. While so, IT people advocate for their use and IT executives concentrate the business processes as opposed to dealing with complex and technical issues relating to software.
 
For most mobile applications on the enterprise level, the three major components that comprise Mobile SaaS are client software running on mobile equipment; adapter software which serves as connection point to data sources; and mobile middleware element which takes charge of managing the message flow, applications, users and devices.

Mobile SaaS provides its adapter and mobile middleware components within a hosted, and multi-tenant environment, thereby getting rid of the need for the business organizations to obtain, apply, experiment and sustain the components. The client application element may also be available for user download over-the-air.
 
By providing the three components through Mobile SaaS, organizations will reap these benefits:

As carrier networks and related devices improve in terms of capabilities over time, the Mobile SaaS model is seen as  “future-proof”. Mobile SaaS can keep up with rapid technology evolution simply because the research and expansion costs are shared by all consumers and not just taken by a subscribing organization. This is an advantage mainly for businesses with IT management costs that demand fairly time-consuming and costly processes.

The pay-for-use SaaS model lessens shelfware through allowing enterprises to purchase only the exact numbers of license that it will need on a real-time basis.

Considering operational and capital expenditures, expenditures relating to SaaS are deemed as operational, unlike the conventional software licenses which are treated as principal expenditures.

Mobile SaaS guarantee faster deployment. The SaaS model for mobile technology is generally deployed at a quicker pace, as compared with usual build-it-on-your-own solutions. This is because Mobile SaaS infrastructure requires little time for approval, installation, testing and final deployment.

Mobile SaaS gives the enterprise the opportunity to give more attention to the implemented mobile workflows over the technical aspect of the operation, or the platform that the system runs. In this regard, the implementation with respect to mobile infrastructure, as well as its management, does not become the IT executive’s core function.

With Mobile SaaS, enterprises gain the ability to make rapid validity tests on the mobile applications, while eliminating the task to obtain, test or deploy the technically complex mobile infrastructure. Notably, large business organizations employing sophisticated data infrastructures benefit from Mobile SaaS, before they set out to bring up their own infrastructure thereafter.

Indeed, Mobile SaaS offers businesses the opportunity to take on the road their most crucial applications, such as sales, service management and logistics without necessarily going off-course.

Essentially, SaaS providers should recognize the intricacies involved in on-demand offerings, as well as the challenges in the transitioning of dedicated applications into a SaaS platform — as operated by the IT organization of the client — before starting component selection and infrastructure design.

A high-level SaaS platform requires certain technical standards. For large business enterprises, these requirements that are more focused on the platform over the solution or the application.

1. The platform must be able to meet certain technical requirements, namely availability, security, reliability and standards, among others, which are supported by most SaaS solutions.

2. The platform should be decoupled into three layers – portal or User Interaction, domain or data and business logic — because these generally not supported SaaS providers.  With respect to User Interaction, the SaaS providers host and provide only the presentation aspect, while the data and business logic are stored in some other areas.
Pointing to a specific case, for instance, SalesForce.com hosts User Interaction; SAP
Business By Design hosts Business Logic; and Oracle hosts the Data.

3. Tools for standard development should ideally be used, such as the Eclipses tool. Meanwhile, the code may require on-site deployment and SaaS platform. In recent cases, there is a slim possibility of reused code between in-house developments being allowed. It is recommended that one identical code will be deployed on the on-premise infrastructure and the SaaS platform.

4. In order to meet the needs large enterprises, data services that are on real-time basis and are unrestricted are a major factor. To do this, user interaction should be supported by multi-channels, which most providers currently offer.

5. Standard tools that have been developed must be deployed on in-house infrastructure or SaaS. These standard tools are supported by top SaaS vendors for PHP, Ruby or Perl, but only a few support .Net or Java, Flex, AJAX and the like.

6. Business Logic that is based on XPDL and BPEL are not supported by most of the major vendors. These SaaS vendors, however, support the native code standards. Additionally, SaaS developers may use their online or graphical developer tools in order to present a business process or logic model. The code, however, cannot be deployed within the business enterprise.

7. The facility to decouple the business policies and rules from the process, as supported by the develop-custom code, can be expected to mature in the succeeding two years, A certain “Business Rules“ engine, which include ILog and Drools, are deployable within an enterprise.

8. The data or Domain Layer is the standard data grid which supports distributed data. This is also inclusive of the “meta-data” which drives the solution in its entirety. The developer must also be capable of modelling any composite or simple object, for deployment on the grid thereafter. When based on operations or CRUD, the decoupled data layer performs the operation on the proper data source.

9. The ability for support to alerts and events in order trigger certain actions, or the Event-Driven Architecture support may also function as a “business state machine”. Providing performance on a real-time basis is a key requirement for next generation business solution – which is offered by Coghead and SalesForce. The business solutions that these providers offer are on a transactional level and may have to be extended and capacitate them to provide an almost real-time performance. Notably, SaaS providers should ideally leverage SaaS tools such as Tangosol or Oracle Coherence, Java Space, SAP In-memory database, GigaSpaces. EII tools including Composite, AquaLogic DSP and Metamatrix will give the SaaS providers an edge, as to provide foundation to the layers.

Software analysts predict that large business enterprises will start adopting certain SaaS solutions along with IT groups to primarily focus on the integration of the enterprise. It is expected that by then, a standards-based platform that needs a single development tool will be achieved. Such will offer IT organizations the choice to deploy the solution either on the SaaS providers’ platform or within an enterprise. To this end, analysts conclude that perhaps, enterprises actually need a SooS – a Services-Oriented Operation System.

Scoping SaaS may be well demonstrated as an Enterprise Content Management  or ECM option. With ECM, the major selections for implementation are SaaS and a ”turnkey” solution. These choices have the upside and downsides as to each of them, but undeniably, the SaaS model has steadily been increasing in popularity as the more viable software solution for ECM. Scoping SaaS projects for ECM is less complex for various reasons.

The implementation methods covering are known to be speedier than any delivered application. While turnkey solutions may take months, SaaS is completed in a few days or weeks’ time. It may be a fact that turnkey solutions offer richer sets of features and functionalities, but are also directly tied to the complexity that comes with its implementation. As majority of SaaS solutions become easily configurable, they require the implementation only of certain required features.

Perhaps above all the features and benefits that characterize SaaS, it is best known for its cost-effectiveness in operating costs. Operational investments are significantly reduced with SaaS because no infrastructures will need to be maintained. Even the most basic – albeit the more essential – maintenance requirement, such as the management of patches and vulnerabilities is the SaaS provider’s obligation.

Generally, compliance in regulatory requirements is directly related to ECM. A bigger part of compliance depends upon proper content management, also called “Nemertes,” or information stewardship. Accordingly, this area is where a SaaS provider is differentiating the services – through support of regulatory requirements that will have to be complied, which may consist of GLBA, HIPAA, SB1386 and Sarbanes-Oxley, among some other 37 laws on state privacy.

SaaS offers enhanced security, which refers to continuous improvement in terms of integrity, availability and confidentiality. According to industry experts, SaaS succeeds in increasing these factors. Counterintuitive as it may be deemed, the moving of content toward third-party providers may be a wise move in terms of security. Naturally, though, success in security enhancement is hinged upon certain procedures and the controls that providers put in place in order to protect data.

The automated tools featured and offered by SaaS should also be taken advantage. To be highly successful, implementation, though at a limited scope, must cover all aspects pertaining to SaaS-friendly environment. These may include, among several others, data on network, configuration, system components, disaster plans and activities, and more importantly, planning on business continuity.
With all these components working together, the SaaS offering for CRMs will bring in revenues, and better customer relations.

Proven methodologies to successfully implement SaaS projects that are appropriately scoped should be significantly noted and applied.

Research reveals that CRM makes a good SaaS solution because of its limited scope in terms of deployment, which usually covers customer support and sales. Hence, the best way to have SaaS for ECM is to limit the implementation scope by either functional or organizational means. With an approach that is essentially limited in terms of scope, clients and providers both benefit from SaaS and answer to various content and software management issues.

Customers Find The Real Deal In SaaS

Price-conscious markets find SaaS’ pricing and packaging terms more affordable and simpler than most on-premises products. SaaS’ attraction to clients is premised upon these characteristics:

1. With SaaS, the client-server software maintenance or installation, which usually comes in an 800-page guideline module, is gone.

2. SaaS also takes minutes to deploy, as compared with phased deployment that may take several months.

3. Technologies exist to make SaaS globally available, specifically, natively available functionalities in the Internet.

4. With SaaS, reporting of bugs may be done through the Service Level Agreement or SLA. The bugs being reported may be fixed without the rollout overhead. Also, the fix or rollout of patches is completed at immediately.

5. Using SaaS application means smaller yet constant upgrades, through miniscule alterations that may add up over a period of time, rather than a huge patch than requires investment and which upgrade eats up a lot of time.

Providers Bask In A Win-Win Situation With SaaS

As a service provider, it is natural to want to have a domain of one’s own. With an aggregate environment for operations, SaaS does not require a technician to customize or fix the software that does misfits into a client’s outdated, or too specialized infrastructure.  SaaS allows complete optimization control over an infrastructure with respect to SaaS’ specific system requirements. For a provider, this is a great synergy that leads to more savings and less headaches.

SaaS, as providers will attest, creates for them predictable revenue streams through the subscription model that SaaS is associated with. Clients paying at recurring schedules mean better flexibility and revenues that may easily be forecasted. This way, the “scheduled” cash flow translates to a more reliable revenue model.

The subscription set-up also highlights the predictability of user growth.  Moreover, monitoring of client usage is possible through the pay-as-you-go system. While at it, providers do not need to worry regarding rollout logistics in all customer sites and focus on core operations like application functionality, enhancing features and tackling application bugs.

Enhanced customer relationship management or CRM is a premise of subscribership, hence, the retention rates can be kept higher than rates of attrition and bringing in more customers is a key effect.

As an overall benefit, SaaS is known to result in better return on assets or ROA. As sourcing strategies are optimized, cost savings become the result. In addition, SaaS offers a shorter time to value, by leveraging assets of the software in a faster pace, with the deployment phase being shunned. SaaS also results in higher agility, as it taps IT capabilities that were otherwise blocked by lack of internal policies or regulatory compliance in an in-house set-up.

An added benefit is that SaaS vendors can innovate themselves faster, as they do not have to acquire the research and development resources and focus instead on fresher versions.
 
Small Businesses Appreciate SaaS

Among smaller enterprises, SaaS is deemed attractive and will potentially hit the niche because it allows the building of a user community to gather feedback regarding the service it offers and about enhancement inquiries. Also, given that the SaaS’ current interface design is scalable, the service needs not be altered in its very foundation with the addition of fresh features. In effect, SaaS does not involve bundling several features or enhancements into huge releases. Instead, there is a continuous release of new features or enhancements that can go with incremental and iterative processes of software development. Small and medium-sized enterprises also champion SaaS because it allows response to competition in a more proactive way over traditional models of software delivery.

SaaS also allows clients to “sneak out” fresh features or enhancements through its “beta test.” It also allows user evaluation to gauge performance and added value, or simply to determine the enhancements that will need to be made. SaaS has also proven to be a more stable model, particularly for the SMBs that normally do not employ IT personnel or engage in hectic operations in their systems. SaaS requires the basics – a working Web browser and speedy Internet connection – that SMBs can afford.

Eventually, SaaS allows clients to learn the deployment process involved in a live environment with minimal disturbances. With SaaS, user experience requires an intuitive approach, as there is no means for users to learn the method because no training courses or manuals are provided.
 
Companies have been adopting the SaaS model, with statistics showing a soaring 20% yearly growth, according to IT guru Nick Carr. Moreover, researches have revealed that North American chief information officers; about 61% of their overall number – all with over $1,000,000,000 in company sales – are gearing up for the adoption of SaaS.

Similarly, Web 3.0 is on its way to offering a new era with respect to business applications. It will not be surprising if Web 2.0 becomes a “staging post” toward much more durable and mature Web 3.0 stage. Generally, the key characteristics involved in the Web 3.0 V are apparently starting to be used by on-demand companies, such as Amazon.com, Google and eBay, among other dominant business application players. As predictable as it may seem, these currently dominating companies may not be the dominant ones at all at the full upsurge of Web 3.0. Smaller players such as WebSideStory, WebEx, NetSuite, Rearden Commerce, Jamcracker and Salesforce.com will shed light on the development of Web 3.0, and may in fact end up as key companies with respect to Web 3.0. Still, other leaders in the industry are yet to rise, considering the shift from the present generation to the next. Front-runners may stumble, analysts say, but may emerge to be the more established ones, in fact.
 
It must be made clear that as opposed to the usual notion, Web 3.0 is not only about search, shopping or entertainment. The fact is that is bound to deliver a fresh making relating to business applications, which will see the convergence of business computing on fundamental and on-demand architecture that are similar with consumer applications. Therefore, it does not merely pertain to a passing interest for the enterprise IT, but instead, will radically transform these enterprises and their workforce.
 
As a general definition, Web 3.0 is of a three-layer component:

• API services makes up the foundation. These refer to raw and hosted services, which have powered Web 2.0 and are bound to be Web 3.0’s “engines.” These include AdWords APIs, Google’s search and affiliate APIs of Amazon, various RSS feeds and functional services like those of StrikeIron, among many others. While a few of these providers, such as Amazon and Google are significant layers, countless of small providers also exist. A highly significant characteristic of the API services layer is its being a “commodity layer”. Hence, at the maturity of Web 3.0, a nearly perfect market is predicted to emerge while virtually squeezing out all profit margins from services of the highest volume services, or otherwise squeeze them as loss-leading.
 
• The mid-layer is formed by aggregation services, comprised of the intermediaries, which are expected to prevent the need to locate raw API services through bundling those together in more useful ways. Considering the present times, several of these RSS aggregators and rising marketplaces for web services include StrikeIron’s service. In this middle layer lies some lucrative business operations, but it may not be the better money-making layer.
• Application services make up the topmost layer. Experts believe that this layer houses the biggest profits. Unlike ERP, CRM or Office, this layer does not make up the usual application categories. This layer introduces an innovative class made up of composite business applications. These applications bring together from multiple services the immediate functionalities for end-users to achieve objectives in self-evident and flexible ways.

A “half layer” also exists in Web 3.0, referring to serviced clients. In the landscape of Web 3.0, there exists a certain role for the clients’ side. However, it is likely that users will expect this to be managed and maintained for them, thus the term “serviced” clients. It will be interesting to know whether the clients at this layer will be serviced based on Windows, or on the conventional browser technology. However the more exciting movement to watch out for, according to software experts, is the role that giant Microsoft will play on the imminent upsurge of Web 3.0.

On a vendor’s perspective, shifting an overall business model toward being SaaS-supporting may prove to be daunting a task. This business decision requires more than a change of revenue; it also means supporting the clients’ software and systems on a 24×7 basis upon certain service agreements.

Being a hosted delivery of software, the SaaS model promises as an alternative for businesses to reach certain objectives in a more cost-effective way than what  traditionally packaged applications offer. Essentially, SaaS’ software delivery model bills companies are not for owning software per se, but for the usage of it. In a SaaS set-up, the software provider takes charge of its availability, as well as scalability, maintenance, and disaster recovery, among others.

Hence, the concept behind SaaS lies on a premise where ISVs host service delivery infrastructure and give more focus on developing the product. While at it, SaaS hosters, as they are technically called, are allowed to provide certain expertise in operation and support services to the end-customers of independent service vendors.

Typically, SaaS hosting includes consulting services which help on-ramp ISVs into the actual hosting solution. These solutions include technology-aligned consulting services which aim to assist ISV applications’ SaaS enablement feature for “as-a-service” type of software delivery as a service. The consulting services are also business-focused for assistance in terms of compensation models, business planning, and online marketing and sales, and in some cases, outsourced call center support.

SaaS hosters provide a deeper support for ISV application, including support personnel, customized monitoring of the application, and creation of “operational” books containing detailed procedures for the hosters, with respect to the service offering of the ISVs.

It is worthy to note that a few of SaaS hosters have integrated solutions that center on customer’s provisioning, self-administration, metering or billing, among other infrastructure service features to lessen the time required for ISVs to market.

Experts predict that in a few years, SaaS hosting will get even busier – which translate to more options for ISVs. In the same manner, maturity in the offerings of SaaS hosting may be expected as competition will bring service levels to higher notch. Recent findings reveal that there are approximately 23,311 software firms present in the United States; while pointing to roughly 5,000 SaaS-related vendors or SaaS providers. With more similar ventures being funded on a yearly basis, the possibility of companies going into SaaS hosting is steadily increasing.

SaaS Vendors Gain Apparent Advantage

IT and software experts predict that the SaaS market will be experiencing a big upsurge in five years’ time. For SaaS vendor companies, this is good news. On the flip side, however, it can mean worse times for vendors of traditional software.

Studies reveal that the Saas market will increase from 5% in 2007, and is particularly expected to account for 25% of fresh enterprise software revenue in the year 2011.
Certainly, the trends with respect to business software have tremendously changed. Of course, SaaS has its shortcomings despite being an overnight success. For one, it is said to be short of sufficient maturity. Others observe that several SaaS deployments still cater to individual business units or focus within small-sized to medium-sized sectors. 

To date, research says that no SaaS provider offers process management or functionality capabilities that are at par with on-premise business software in order to support cross-departmental and end-to-end business flows. It is beyond question, though, the software preference and scale of power has started to make a considerable shift to the SaaS mode.

Top vendors believe that the SaaS model is almost reaching its tipping point, with more and more companies recognizing that they favour hassle-free installing and software management in an in-house setting. The SaaS boom caught several conventional on-premise software vendors off-guard. On the other hand, software vendor giants, such as Microsoft, are catching up in order to protect their revenues against the threat of SaaS switching clientele.

Admittedly, the software market place is swamping SaaS. With the economic situation at play, business organizations have tightened their budgets, and the amounts being poured must justify the costs of enterprise software replacement. In this regard, several companies have opted for the SaaS offering.

Alongside this software preference shift, companies have revolutionized the way they work. The limited involvement of central IT is altering as these organizations realize that SaaS solutions have provided an option, which has gained the acceptance of the mainstream market. Analysts conclude that SaaS is reshaping the business software market.

Pioneering SaaS vendors have done their part in defending and proving that the SaaS model may be a better deal than the on-premise, traditional software. With their resources at hand, people speculate that these companies may not only be mere participants, but may even be dominating the hyped SaaS scenario in the overall.

In a more general scope, SaaS vendors consist of:

 30boxes, which focuses on software for calendar or scheduling. www.software30boxes.com says it allows its clients to remember important dates, know goings-on, “get certain things done”, keep up with the latest with friends and family, and organize or share minus the hassle.

 Atlassian takes charge of enterprise wikis by affording clients with lightweight software that helps their end-clients collaborate better. According to www.atlassian.com, the term Atlassian refers to the Atlas-like service it offers.

 Coghead offers software for application templates, according to www.coghead.com. Coghead claims to have an all-in-One Internet development and application platform. It is aimed at empowering IT professionals, software developers, and technologically inclined business people for them to develop certain applications for automated business operations. Coghead says its approach is 100% Internet based, and is highly in the favor of its customers.

 www.collectivex.com says CollectiveX offers collaboration or applications platform, which it claims to likely become the core of social collaboration in an Office 2.0 environment.

 Information sharing is what DabbleDB is all about. In its Web site, www.dabbledb.com assures its potential customers that it is focusing on certain “new technology” that may be useful on an everyday basis. DabbleDB collects and finds videos from the Internet, regardless of where these are being hosted.

 Etelos offers office, sales or project management software. www.etelos.com flaunts that the company will “revolutionize the development, distribution and consumption of Internet-based applications by enterprises toward reaching their goals and targets. Etelos offers SaaS developers ease in licensing, distribution and support application. In addition, Etelos says it gives enterprises the option to fully customize on-demand applications to go for licensing and allows their deployment to the chosen hosting environment.

 Extentech is all about business intelligence, according to www.extentech.com. Extentech is a developer of tools and applications for Java, such as ExtendXLS spreadsheet SDK, Exteria business automation, ExtenXLS server, ExtenBIS BI Server and Sheetstr.com Web-based spreadsheet.

 Foldera caters to information organization aspect of an enterprise, housing its offerings at www.foldera.com.

 Genius at www.geniusnet.com offers tracking of sales prospects, particularly providing products, finance, marketing and logistics services.
 InetOffice, Inc. at http://www.inetoffice.com, caters to document creation and management needs of enterprises by developing and designing Web-based business document solutions

 With a service related to content collaboration, Koral at www.koral.com offers user-friendly solutions to manage company data in emails, folders, web pages and documents.

  www.near-time.net for Near Time discloses that the company offers software collaborations, specifically catered to group interaction and driven by data content integration.

 NetSuite, with www.netsuite.com as its official Web site, also caters to business applications, offering Internet-based enterprise software suite, such as ERP/Accounting software, E-commerce and CRM software.

 Salesforce, at www.salesforce.com - has gained its reputation as the leader in customer relationship management and applications platform services.

 www.socialtext.com or simply Socialtext, is known for the enterprise wikis it offers, through application of Web 2.0 technologies.

 SugarCRM at www.sugarcrm.com, offers open-source commercial CRM software that drives automation of sales force and deployment of customer support on site or on demand.

 www.systemone.at or System One deals with knowledge management, enterprise collaboration through a simplistic interface.

 ThinkFree at www.thinkfree.com offers word processor that is Java-based, as well as presentation packages and spreadsheets with MOffice compatibility.

 www.thinklogic.com for ThinkLogic, LLC focuses on the designing, developing, as well as supporting Web-based business software applications, catering to software companies and businesses that scope and develop Application Service Provide, custom applications or SaaS.

 Workday focuses on advocating passion for software innovation and putting emphasis on customers. As reflected in its official Web site, www.workday.com, the vendor’s services include, among others, on human capital management, payroll, financial management, procurement, resource management and expenses.

 Zoho – at www.zoho.com – offers a wide array of Web applications that geared towards productivity increase at easy collaboration