Web-hosted software on the rise

Various IT publications and websites (eg: Infomatics) are covering market research commissioned by [my employer] BIW Technologies which suggests the global credit crunch could prove to be a boost to the software as a service (SaaS) sector, as businesses opt to spread software spending over a longer period, according to research. These are the headlines, but there are also some other interesting nuggets of information (see full news release); I was, for example, interested by the revelation that many UK IT directors believes the UK lags behind its international counterparts in adopting SaaS (true in some – but certainly not all – areas).

BIW’s survey suggests that SaaS could double its annual revenue in the UK to £2.5bn over the next three years. More than 65 per cent of the 300 IT directors surveyed thought the current economic climate – already boosting the performance of some IT services companies – would lead to greater SaaS uptake.

Recent research from analyst Forrester Research showed uptake of SaaS tripled in large companies last year. Almost 70 per cent of those surveyed by BIW thought the proportion of their overall software needs that would be provided by SaaS would at least double over the next five years, from around 15 per cent currently to more than 30 per cent.

But there were concerns over security: 70 per cent of survey respondents thought that SaaS was potentially more of a security risk than traditional software because it is hosted online and could be subject to hacking.