Key SaaS, PaaS and IaaS Trends Through 2015: Business Transformation via the Cloud. Executive Summary. A research report prepared by:

Transcription

1 Key SaaS, PaaS and IaaS Trends Through 2015: Business Executive Summary A research report prepared by:

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Summary 1 Introduction 2 Today s Economic Situation Continues to Favor the Cloud 3 Businesses are Reshaping Themselves 4 The Rise of Hybrid Application Architectures 6 Most Business Enterprises will Lag in Embracing IaaS and PaaS 8 PaaS is Still very Immature, not Enterprise Ready, but will Evolve 10 Through 2015 SaaS will Continue to Dominate Spending 11 Social Networking and Mobility are Key Enablers of the Boundary-free Enterprise 13 Integration and Workflow 15 Net Impact 17 User Impact 19 Vendor Impact 20 About this Report This SaaS Trends report takes a broad view across the Cloud Ecosystem and across all of Cloud IT, looking forward toward 2015 and presenting the trends we see unfolding in that time frame. In the context of the past eight years of research into the Cloud, these trends illustrate not only where the Cloud is heading, but also where it s been. Additional related research of interest is available to clients via our Research Library located at (registration required). The following Saugatuck staff were instrumental in the development of this report: Lead author: Michael West, support by Bill McNee, with contributions from other members of the Saugatuck Team: Lee Geishecker, Bruce Guptill, Robert McNeill and Charlie Burns. About Saugatuck Technology Saugatuck Technology Inc. provides subscription research / advisory and strategy consulting services to senior business and IT executives, technology and software vendors, business / IT services providers, and investors. Our mission is to help our clients make better business decisions and create new business value through trusted and objective insights into the key market trends and emerging technologies driving real change in business computing. Over the last few years this has included a major focus on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Infrastructure, and Social Computing, among other key trends. Founded in 1999, Saugatuck is headquartered in Westport, CT with offices in Falmouth, MA and Santa Clara, CA and Frankfurt, Germany. For more information, please visit or call Publication Date: January 18, 2010 Document Number: 834SSR Entire contents All rights are reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. i

3 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: The Four Waves of Cloud IT 2 Figure 2: Preference For New Software Deployment 3 Sidebar: The Cloud Ecosystem 4 Figure 3: Saugatuck s Cloud Ecosystem Model 4 Figure 4: Cloud Business Solutions Move to the Core 5 Figure 5: The Emerging Hybrid Architecture 7 Figure 6: Public versus Private Cloud Adoption 9 Figure 7: Four Categories of Evolving PaaS Solutions 10 Figure 8: SaaS Adoption Percentages 12 Figure 9: A Spectrum of Standalone-to-Suite Solutions 12 Figure 10: Cloud IT Solutions in Production Systems 14 Figure 11: The Cloud and Evolving Service Provider Dynamics 16 ii

4 SUMMARY Today s economic situation continues to favor the Cloud, driven by businesses that are reshaping themselves. The Cloud including SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and Cloud Services will drive increasing business and IT activity, resulting in hybrid architectures to manage and a new Cloud IT mission. Though most business enterprises may lag in embracing both PaaS and IaaS, partly because public Cloud lacks formal standards, private Clouds are increasingly of interest, especially to larger enterprises. Meanwhile, PaaS is still very immature, and not yet enterprise ready for serious, mainstream development, but will evolve. Through 2015, SaaS will continue to dominate spending, including Cloud IT, social networking and mobility solutions, key aspects of the boundary-free enterprise. Integration and workflow in the cloud primarily with on-premise systems will remain a critical capability. Cloud services providers (specifically, pure-play Cloud System Integrators as well as traditional service providers aggressively pursuing the Cloud) will flourish as they embrace SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS serving both ISVs migrating to the cloud and enterprises reshaping themselves. Through 2015, the Cloud IT industry will itself transform and consolidate, while SaaS plays its central role. INTRODUCTION Since 2003, Saugatuck has provided an ongoing assessment of what has become known as the Cloud Ecosystem. We conducted our first formal survey of buyer demand and expectations, augmented by vendor interviews, in August 2003 and delivered our first in-depth analysis report in February of Since then, we have conducted dozens of comprehensive studies and published hundreds of Strategic Perspectives and Research Reports. Our methodology has evolved with the space and with the terminology used to describe it. What was once known as Pay As You Go IT Services became SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and then, more recently, Cloud Computing. However, Cloud Computing is a widely misunderstood and somewhat ambiguous term that different audiences understand differently. At Saugatuck Technology we refer to the phenomenon as Cloud IT. Our Web-based surveys, initially small in size and driven from our own network, became more sophisticated and representative over the years as we partnered with Businessweek Research Services (now Bloomberg Businessweek). In 2009 and in 2010, we began delving deeper into SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS with separate survey and interview projects addressing these different ecosystem levels. Over the past eight years, we have developed a number of integrative models to help our clients understand how all of the changes occurring in the Cloud were coalescing into a new set of capabilities for enterprises, the pace at which they were evolving, and the likely scenarios for the next several years. The evolution of SaaS, which spans multiple layers of the Cloud Ecosystem, and its eventual absorption into what we have called Cloud IT is depicted below (See Figure 1: The Four Waves of Cloud IT). 1

5 Figure 1: The Four Waves of Cloud IT Source: Saugatuck Technology Inc. Several years ago, we introduced our Four Waves Model as a way of presenting the evolution of SaaS and its eventual merging into Cloud IT. In Figure 1, the two S- curves pass through a succession of four distinct, but overlapping waves of Cloud technology: Wave I: Cost-effective Delivery of Stand-alone Solutions ( ) Wave II: Integrated Business solutions ( ) Wave III: Workflow-enabled Business Transformation ( ) Wave IV: Measured, Monitored, Managed Business Processes ( ) Note that by 2015, SaaS has merged into Cloud IT and is indistinguishable from it. Even today, it is reasonable to include SaaS when speaking of Cloud IT, as more and more of the Enterprise IT organization is directly involved in acquiring SaaS solutions, although SaaS has largely been a business-unit-driven phenomenon. Further, in discussing SaaS, we believe it is important to include the related ecosystem levels that have grown up around it, IaaS, PaaS and Cloud Services. In this report, we focus on SaaS in the full context of Cloud IT across all the Cloud Ecosystem layers. This SaaS Trends report also represents a new departure for Saugatuck Technology, as we take a broad view across the Cloud Ecosystem and across all of Cloud IT, looking forward toward 2015 and presenting the trends we see unfolding in that time frame. In the context of the past eight years of research into the Cloud, these trends illustrate not only where the Cloud is heading, but also where it s been. 2

6 TODAY S ECONOMIC SITUATION CONTINUES TO FAVOR THE CLOUD 65 percent or more of all NEW business application / solution decisions in the enterprise will be Cloud-based or Hybrid by 2015 (up from percent in 2009). All customer segments are impacted. Through 2015, Cloud satisfaction levels remain high, resulting in 90 percent plus average customer renewal rates, and 100 percent plus average contract value renewal rates. By 2015, the Cloud helps reshape 50 percent or more of traditional IT spend and channel relationships with significant regional variations. The evolving ecosystem of Cloud solutions, and especially SaaS, has become increasingly more attractive than the traditional on-premise software model both to buyers and to ISVs (see Figure 2). Buyers appreciate low up-front costs, no major investment in infrastructure or personnel, quicker time to use, and lower costs of ownership. ISVs can see clearly the growth rates of Cloud solution providers outstripping on-premise vendors. Even as the global economy went through the recent massive recession and tentative recovery, SaaS firms revenue growth clearly outperformed traditional on-premise providers. Most market studies, including our own, indicate that SaaS and other Cloud solutions will maintain and increase revenue growth rates well above on-premise software in the coming years. Figure 2: Preference For New Software Deployment Source: Saugatuck Technology Inc. While the initial impact of the Cloud has been primarily economic better, faster cheaper we are beginning to see the transformative effects of Cloud technology on businesses. Geographic reach and the ability to coordinate across organizational boundaries are two easy to identify transformative effects. The use of mobile devices to access information in the Cloud, share that information with co-workers, launch business transactions and control on-premise assets remotely through the Cloud brings still another dimension to how business can now operate. 3

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