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Closing the Gap
A university professor who is active in IT venture capital concludes that SaaS is still in the early stages of its potential. "Companies that I work with are experimenting with it, not making major commitments. It still requires internal SOA architectural expertise, which is in short supply," he notes. "That said, this is a trend that has legs. In five years, we won't think about implementing and supporting behemoth software applications. Instead, we'll pick and choose -- and then template -- the functionality we need [and] that we'll get from internal and external repositories."
"It is not just an extension of the ASP model; [it's] much more flexible," he adds. "While the dot-coms were burning, the industry actually made enormous integration and interoperability strides through Web services, SOA and [event-driven architecture]. It's interesting how much the world has changed, and even more interesting that relatively few have noticed."
For IT leaders, the questions are, "Have you taken notice of SaaS?" and "Now that you've taken notice, what have you done about it?" As your peers move forward with Software as a Service, how are you closing the awareness gap?
SURVEY METHODOLOGY: Researchers contacted 140 companies (49% large firms; 51% midmarket firms) in 17 vertical markets: banking, construction, consumer electronics, education, entertainment, fashion, food, government, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, philanthropy, publishing, retail, services, technology and telecom.
Thornton May is a respected futurist, adviser and educator whose insights on IT strategy have appeared in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and numerous computer industry publications. To comment on this story, email editor@ciodecisions.com.
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