contentmanagement

More Good News For SaaS Based Solutions

This week there was an article in CIO.com reporting that both IDC and Gartner are bullish for the SaaS industry.

And, this week Microsoft is certainly making a big noise at its developer's conference with the announcement of Microsoft Azure.  When you look at the market sizing that both IDC and Gartner are predicting, it's easy to see why the boys in Redmond are looking down the road at SaaS and seeing gold.

IDC is especially bullish on the market saying that there will be more than $16 billion spent on cloud computing just this year.  And, then they go on to say that this is to climb to $42.3 billion by 2012.

This is certainly something we'd agree with here at CrownPeak.  As companies start to look at ways to really leverage their online properties - the SaaS model makes a ton of sense.  Unless you're in a business that absolutely requires that you manage your own infrastructure - in other words it's a competitive matter for you - why on earth would you want to build your own data center, manage your own hardware and create technology - when you can simply subscribe to a way to manage your web presence with a SaaS based solution.

It will be interesting to see if this economy condition actually is a "tipping point" for moving in this direction.

Content Management Is Set To Grow - Whew...

So, with all the bad news going around, it was refreshing that Wintergreen Research (forgive me for the pun) has just put out a new report and it forecasts significant growth for web content management over the next few years.  It supports this with arguments saying that as companies shift to more online marketing, web 2.0 and other technologies the need for a common look and feel, management of disparate teams and brand management will really fuel the need for web content management.

Additionally, as marketing departments really become much more international, as well as other trends as more mobile - a common solution to manage the central web site becomes more of a need.

You can see the summary of the report and also purchase it here.

Open Source No Longer A Business Model

The 451 Group, an analyst group that I really respect came out with a controversial new report entitled Open Source is not a business model.

This report really flies in the face of what has almost become a cliche - that if you just build software and give it away for free you can build a business by charging customers for support and customization.

The 451 Group says it ain't so.

In fact, they posit (after analyzing the businesses of 114 open source-related companies) that:

A) the majority of open source vendors now use some kind of commercial licensing as at least a part of their business.

and

B) that at least half of them develop some code for the product as "out of sight" material...

And, they then point out that 70% of the companies surveyed offered support services to their customers.  But, only 8% of them said that this is a primary revenue stream.

Matthew Aslett (the report's author) even says "there is very little money being made out of open source software that doesn't involve proprietary software and services".

This actually supports what we've been saying at CrownPeak for a long time.

Open Source software is a great solution.  And, in fact it can many times be the perfect solution for your needs.  However, choose Open Source for the right reason.  Choose it because you are "free to develop"  Choose it because you have unique requirements and a team, or can afford to spend money on support, maintenance, upgrades and infrastructure management.  Don't choose it because it's "free of cost".  You're going to spend money - whether it's with a commercial software vendor or an Open Source provider/support vendor or your own internal team.

Will The Economic Downturn Mean A Rise In SaaS

Another interesting article in Infoworld about how "cloud computing" or Software-as-a-Service is poised for growth due to the economic downturn.

I certainly agree in terms of web content management.  As companies really hunker down and start trying to build value - their marketing departments will be challenged to do even more with less.  That means no huge outlay of cash in a capital expenditure and a way to "grow into" a solution when you want to stick your toe into the water first.

Somebody I really respect, Phil Wainright of ZDNet also discussed this in some detail on his blog.  Good reading for those of you beginning to consider a SaaS based web content management solution.

SaaS The Next Big Thing in ECM?

Interesting article just released on AIIM talking about SaaS - where they talk about the main benefits of Software-as-a-Service.  In that AIIM is almost exclusively focused on ECM vs. Web Content Management, this seems like an interesting mile marker - moving toward the move to SaaS more generally.

The article quotes customers who have moved to a SaaS model for ECM:

 “We did it in less than two weeks with one person who wasn’t working at it full time.” Training was a breeze. “Since our sales force was familiar with the CRM application, it was a minimal effort to get it up and running and to get people using it.”

It seems to me that as SaaS vendors like Salesforce.com, and Spring CM begin to gain more traction - and eat into the traditional, installed market for ECM - we'll start see some of what we've seen in the Web Content Management Space; installed vendors claiming a SaaS offering.

As always, beware the installed software offering as a software service. That is the worst of both worlds.