A Brief Guide To Cloud Computing Part III - SaaS in more detail

In this third post on Cloud Computing I will look at SaaS in a more detail. Software As A Service can be thought of a web based services that supports one or more business processes. The services are targeted at the business user (in general) and business super users or business oriented techies who configure the applications and how they integrate with other cloud based or in house applications.

There are many SaaS services available in the market and more are being added every day. However, most of these fit into a couple of sub segments -

• Customer Relationship Management.
• Enterprise Resource Planning
• Supply Chain Management
• Digital Content Creation
• Communication Oriented Services supporting collaboration, instant messaging, video conferencing etc.
• Integration services for managing messaging between systems.

CRM
The CRM sub segment consists of those services related to all aspects of customer relationship management and is one of the most mature segments. Examples include SalesForce.com (the market leader), SugarCrm, RightNow and of course Oracle and SAP's offerings. There are also a range of other offerings in particular niches.

Communication Oriented Services
This category covers a wide variety of services including e-learning, collaboration, enterprise content management, instant messaging, email and team collaborations and is probably the most widely adopted SaaS sub segment.

ERP
To date there has been relatively little adoption in this area. The most successful services are those that can be used for business processes that are relatively generic accross all industries e.g. HR, recruitment, expenses etc. Examples are SAP By Desigm, WorkDay and NetSuite.

Supply Chain Management
This segment is focused on services that enable organisation to manage and improve their supply chain and suppliers. This segment is currently growing quickly and new offerings are appearing regularly. Examples include Descartes, Ariba and Ketera.

Digital Content Creation
This SaaS segment is currently fairly underdeveloped despite a huge demand for digital content creation applications. Examples include Adobe and YouTube.

Integration Services
This part of the market is also relatively immature and is unlikely to grow very quickly due to the cost of switching. It does however have great potential. Examples include Pervasive, CastIron and BoomI.

Summary
The list above is far from exhaustive. As can be seen above there are many SaaS offerings in the market and the market is growing and changing rapidly. Predictions as to growth in the sector vary but in general there is general agreement that the CRM and Communication Oriented Services segments will continue to grow strongly over the next 18 months.

In my next blog posting I will look at Infrastructure As A Service in some more detail.