Study: Enterprises warm up to SAAS, but concerns remain
By Juan Carlos Perez
,
IDG News Service
, 03/14/2008
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Adoption of hosted applications among large companies jumped last year, but many CIOs and IT managers will not consider these
software-as-a-service (SAAS) products due to concerns about security, cost and integration, according to a Forrester Research
study.
In a 2007 survey of just over 1,000 IT decision makers, 16 percent said their companies were either already using or piloting
SAAS products, a 33 percent increase from 2006.
Those who said they were either interested in or planning to pilot hosted applications remained the same at 46 percent, while
those who aren't interested dropped from 41 percent to 37 percent, Forrester said in the report, issued Wednesday.
Respondents who are favorable to SAAS products cite shorter implementation, lower up-front costs and pay-as-you-go pricing
as reasons, wrote analyst Liz Herbert, the report's author.
Interest in SAAS isn't consistent across application categories. Popular applications include those for human resources, collaboration
and customer relationship management. SAAS is less used for enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and Web
2.0 tools like wikis, blogs and RSS.
Respondents who aren't considering SAAS products cited limitations in the ability for hosted applications to be integrated
with software they have installed in-house and to be customized. These IT executives also believe that hosted applications
that are leased and paid for under a subscription model cost more in the long run than software that is bought and installed
on the company's servers. They also mentioned a variety of security concerns, including fear about having the software and
data hosted in a third party's data center and concerns about application performance and availability.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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