Is SaaS Running Away With the Market?
Earlier this month, we reported that despite spending cutbacks by many corporate IT departments, the market for software-as-a-service (SaaS) performance management applications is thriving. Since that report, we’ve seen more evidence of this trend. Both Host Analytics and Adaptive Planning reported record results in 2008. Adaptive Planning CEO William Soward says that customers who have chosen his SaaS solution lately have tended to take the attitude that they are willing to sacrifice a few bells and whistles they might find in more complex BPM products if forgoing those extra features means they can improve their performance management for a low up-front cost.
Analyst firm IDC recently raised its projection for 2009 growth in the SaaS software market overall (i.e., not only among firms that specialize in SaaS performance management solutions) from 36 percent to 40.5 percent. How is this possible as the rest of the software industry is hurting? “People are likely to be commitment-phobic,” suggests Ray Wang, an analyst with Forrester Research.
