Gartner Says SaaS Revenue to Top $12 Billion in 2011
By Mandira Srivastava, TMCnet Contributor
In the last few years, software as a service has been considered the best software when it comes to software automation. A lot of software as a service companies are emerging that provide better software solution to small and medium- sized business owners.
According to a press release, Gartner Inc. predicts that revenues from software as a service (SaaS (News 
- Alert)) will reach $12.1 billion worldwide in 2011, up 20.7 percent from $10 billion in 2010. In other words, the firm added that as SaaS spending will continue to grow through at least 2015, when worldwide revenue is forecast to reach $21.3 billion.
Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner said, “After more than a decade of use, adoption of SaaS continues to grow and evolve within the enterprise application markets, SaaS will be increasingly in the mix of options as companies look for what Eid called “leaner alternatives in order to save money.”
According to Eid, who said he expects SaaS to represent nearly 32 percent of the CRM market's total software revenue in 2011, the largest market for SaaS is still CRM (customer relationship management) with SaaS revenue in CRM market expected to reach $3.8 billion in 2011, up from $3.2 billion in 2010.
Additionally, the SaaS model is becoming more popular, enterprises are becoming more familiar with it and interest in PaaS (platform as a service) and cloud computing is also increasing, he added.
"The market landscape for on-demand CRM continues to evolve and mature as the availability and use of SaaS solutions become more pervasive," Eid added. "Greater market competition and increased focus on mega vendors reinforce the legitimacy of on-demand solutions, mitigating initial objections about security and availability for many, as acceptance of SaaS as a viable model for enterprise computing services grows."
In addition, companies are not as concerned about security, response time and service availability as SaaS business and computing models have matured and adoption has become more widespread, he said.
In other company news, TMCnet reported that Gartner (News - Alert) places Broadvox as leading provider of hosted unified communication solution.
Mandira Srivastava is a TMCnet contributor. She works as a full-time writer, ghostwriter and blogger, and has more than two years of experience in print and Web media. She has also worked on company brochures, website content and product descriptions, as well as proofreading and editing content. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
