Software as a service

By 2011, software as a service (SaaS) will represent 25% of new business software delivery, according to global research company Gartner.

Currently, SaaS represents around 5% of business software revenue. It is hosted software based on a single set of common code and data definitions that are consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers, at any time.

"In SMEs, we are beginning to see vendors provide capabilities to support more end-to-end processes, such as opportunity to order, and in integration as a service where companies are already using SaaS for large projects," says Robert DeSisto, research vice president for Gartner Research.

"The limited central IT involvement is changing as the IT organization realizes that SaaS solutions are here to stay and that they must look to leverage the upside potential of these approaches, rather than see them as a threat to their existing modus operandi," DeSisto said.