[November 29, 2011]

MuleSoft/THINKstrategies Study Finds Integration Is a Major Obstacle to SaaS Vendor Success

ThinkStrategies, a strategic consulting services company, and MuleSoft, a leading cloud integration provider, today announced the top five findings from a recent study focused on the impact of integration on SaaS (News - Alert) and cloud vendors in the rapidly growing cloud computing market. One of the key findings of the survey is that integration is the most common hurdle in the sales process for SaaS/Cloud providers, with almost 90% of respondents considering integration to be important or extremely important in winning new customers. In addition, SaaS/Cloud vendors also identified integration as the most time-consuming element of customer implementation process. Nearly two-thirds of SaaS/Cloud vendors acknowledge that integration needs to be a critical part of their solution, rather than leaving it to the end-user.

"The success of the first wave of SaaS/Cloud vendors has sparked a 'Cloud Rush' affect which is attracting a proliferation of players to enter the market, ranging from fledgling start-ups to the biggest vendors in the hardware, software and services industry," said Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies and Founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace. "The results clearly shows that leading SaaS/Cloud vendors must incorporate integration solutions into their go-to-market strategies in order to succeed in today's marketplace."

The research report identified five key findings regarding the impact of integration on SaaS/Cloud vendor success:

1. Integration is a key to winning new customers: Over eighty-eight percent (88.8%) of SaaS/Cloud vendor respondents view integration as either important or extremely important in winning new customers.

2. Integration need is widespread: A majority of SaaS/Cloud vendors (52.8%) say that more than half of their customers require integration. Dealing with integration issues is the norm, not the exception, when deploying SaaS/Cloud solutions.

3. Integration is the top barrier to new SaaS/Cloud sales: Almost eighty-eight percent (87.7%) of SaaS/Cloud companies identified integration as a common or very common sales hurdle.

4. Impact of integration on time-to-value: Integration is the most time-consuming element of customer implementation, with 79.3% of respondents saying that integration was highly time-consuming or somewhat time-consuming.

5. Integration is a critical component of SaaS offerings: Nearly two-thirds (62.5%) of the SaaS/Cloud companies believe integration is a critical part of their solution.

As cloud adoption continues to grow, customer expectations have shifted dramatically, requiring SaaS/Cloud vendors to take on many of the integration burdens formerly held by end-users. Customers concerns about integration represent both a threat and an opportunity for SaaS/Cloud providers. Failing to offer integration can blunt sales and create customer support issues, while offering integration capabilities can create a competitive advantage.

This report includes detailed analysis of the survey findings and an integration solution guide to aid SaaS/Cloud providers in selcting an integration solution to fit their needs. In addition, the report introduces a new approach to cloud integration, identified by analyst firm Gartner (News - Alert) Group as "integration platform-as-a-service" (iPaaS). iPaaS can benefit both end-users and SaaS/Cloud vendors, by providing a complete platform that allows SaaS vendors to offer seamless integration with both on-premise and cloud applications.

"As SaaS adoption rises, and as the number of SaaS providers continues to increase, issues with integrating these applications will remain at the forefront," said Mahau Ma, VP of Marketing for MuleSoft. "SaaS/Cloud vendors have to understand that the integration responsibility now rests on their shoulders, not the end-user, and will become a significant inhibitor to their business."

About THINKstrategies, Inc.

THINKstrategies, Inc. is the only strategic consulting services company formed specifically to help organizations capitalize on the unprecedented market opportunities created by the technology industry shift from a product-centric to a services-driven business model, including Cloud Computing and other 'On-Demand' solutions. THINKstrategies' mission is to help our clients re-THINK their corporate strategies, and refocus their limited resources to achieve their business objectives. THINKstrategies helps enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies, IT solutions providers with their marketing strategies, and VCs with their investment strategies.

For more information regarding THINKstrategies' unique consulting services, visit www.thinkstrategies.com, or contact us at [email protected].

About MuleSoft

MuleSoft delivers the world's #1 integration platform for the cloud and enterprise. Built on the most widely used open source application infrastructure products, Mule ESB, iON integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and Tcat (enterprise Tomcat server) provide an ideal combination of simplicity and power to today's web applications. The company's offerings boast more than 2 million downloads and over 3,200 organizations in production, including leading companies such as Walmart.com, MasterCard, Nokia, Nestlé, Honeywell (News - Alert) and DHL, as well as 5 of the world's top 10 banks and over 35% of the Global 500. MuleSoft is headquartered in San Francisco with offices worldwide.

For more information: http://www.MuleSoft.com, or email [email protected].

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