Feb 3

Written by: admin
2/3/2008 10:55 AM

By Ronnie Ray
VP - New Customer Services

In a recent survey from Forrester Research more than 12% of software decision makers said that they were already using SaaS (Software as a Service) and another 40% said they were interested or already piloting it. The question is - are you?

SaaS for business applications is already the darling of customers and the capital markets. While entire tomes have been written on the demise of enterprise software as we know it, it is hard to visualize an entire industry shift to a hosted software model given the many IT and business complexities including security, data confidentiality, compliance, communication and licensing costs, competitive differentiation and intellectual property. However, for many applications and customer types – large and small – SaaS is a worthwhile avenue to explore. The ever expanding footprint of Salesforce.com is a testimony to that evolution.

Interestingly, IT management applications are now also now being pulled into that spiral of growth. Large vendors like BMC and Mercury (now HP) have touted hosted SaaS models or it’s early cousin – Managed Services for years. Equipment vendors like Cisco are getting into the game with a vengeance through acquisitions and investments. Now smaller startups are joining in the game and this is an area that will certainly see a lot of activity in the months and years to come.

Before we delve into the why and why not’s of leveraging SaaS software – let’s draw the line of distinction between SaaS and Managed Services. In the SaaS model an external provider hosts a software application and makes it available for multiple end customers. Infrastructure can be dedicated - with various levels of security and data separation – or shared (“multi-tenant” in industry-speak). Of course the latter model is cheaper and quicker to deployment - but it has less options for individual customization and support for data separation and compliance policies. SaaS end customers have no more responsibility than accessing the software over the web and using it for free (e.g. Google or Yahoo email) or in return for a monthly subscription (e.g. Salesforce.com, Ready Now or even SAP).

In the Managed Services model – for various reasons which may relate to technical or business concerns listed earlier – customers choose to host some or all of the infrastructure but the management responsibility shifts to the provider. The software application is then hosted on the customer premise while the vendor provides an assured level of service based on a combination of remote (mostly) and onsite (if any) monitoring and resources. The utility value to the customer remains the same – a hands free approach to enjoying the functionality of the application, which often times can be complex to implement, administer and change – without the risk of having enterprise data being transmitted outside the corporate network on an ongoing basis.

We at InfoVista have heard our customers talk to us about how we can partner with them with our in-depth expertise on our application- through a Managed Services or SaaS model. For Engineering and Platforms Tools staff this would leave them free to focus on engaging with end users to build the right set of requirements, analytics and reporting to meet business needs. For business and IT managers – it would give them the comfort of assured performance without having to worry about day to day administration, provisioning, capacity upgrades and of course Capex budgeting. For end users, they would have access to InfoVista’s powerful analytics and insights at an assured level of service backed by a Global Help Desk.

We think this idea makes sense and offers a new level of value building on our best of breed credentials. Do you?

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