CIO Insight recently published a slideshow about application adoption trends over the next year. According to a recent survey from SnapLogic, of which over 110 CIOs and other top execs took part, CIOs and other senior tech executives continue to pursue BI, analytics, productivity/collaboration, financial, sales and social media tools, as they strive to integrate IT with their organization’s strategic objectives.

This is yet further proof that the BI/analytics space is hot right now, and more and more companies are realizing that business performance can be largely improved by leveraging these tools.

“BI, for certain, remains hot. But so are other apps, such as those that are Saas/cloud-driven.”

Aberdeen Research are one of the research firms that have been following the SaaS Business Intelligence trend for a while now. They recently published a paper called “SaaS Business Intelligence: Driving Agility through Self-Service“. The paper ultimately recognizes the fact that the increased adoption of SaaS in the business intelligence field validates that it is increasingly becoming a viable option for BI deployment in all types of organizations.

Instead of giving you a long-winded written summary of the report, we’ve decided to pick out some of the more interesting numbers!

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced its intention to acquire Digital Fuel, a leader in IT Financial and Business Management SaaS solutions. Digital Fuel's solutions enable companies to plan, manage and optimize cost and value in the emerging world of cloud based dynamic IT. With this acquisition, VMware will enable enterprises to more effectively manage the business impact of IT environments, centralizing visibility of IT costs, integrating financial discipline into IT decisions, and delivering meaningful measurements and reports that drive engagement with the CFO and line of business stakeholders. Terms of the acquisition were not announced. The acquisition is scheduled to close in July 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.

Digital Fuel's portfolio for IT costing, budget, chargeback, cost optimization, vendor management and SLA management integrates with a broad set of systems, applications, data sources and third-party management technologies to deliver comprehensive, unified financial analysis. These offerings, offered both on-premise within an enterprise datacenter and delivered via Software as a Service (SaaS) models for maximum flexibility, will complement VMware's portfolio of management solutions including vCenter Chargeback and Service Manager. The acquisition of Digital Fuel will enable VMware's enterprise customers to:

Self-Service Private and Hybrid Clouds Come to the Enterprise

a CloudExpo Press Release via Cloud Computing Journal

newScale, rPath and Eucalyptus Systems on Tuesday announced an integrated technology platform that will provide an on-ramp to private and hybrid cloud computing in the enterprise. The technology combination is designed to help businesses achieve maximum IT agility through cloud computing, integrating infrastructure for private and hybrid clouds with enterprise IT self-service and system automation.

Major telcos will be strong force in cloud computing, experts predict

The major global telecommunications companies will become strong players in the cloud computing market as interest from previously cautious end users increases rapidly over the next two to three years, Ovum has predicted.

A new report* by the independent telecoms analyst states that AT&T, BT, Orange Business Services and Verizon Business have made considerable progress in the arena in just over a year, and in terms of services, can now compete with established players from the IT industry.

In writing over the last few weeks about major IT providers getting into health IT any way they could, it was with a sense of sorrow for companies like Cerner that will be displaced.

The sorrow grows a little today, with IBM’s announcement it will do health IT in the cloud, working with Aetna through its ActiveHealth unit.

The strategy has made increasing sense as the year has gone on.

The 2011 fiscal year will start in less than three months, on October 1. Hospitals and clinics will need six months of experience in order to prove meaningful use and get that sweet, sweet stimulus cash. There is no way they can hit that deadline with an installed solution. They must have SaaS.

Good follow-up to a recent blog post on The Daily Telegraphs move into the Cloud

The Daily Telegraph appears to have its head in the clouds, though this is not meant in any way to be a criticism.

Indeed, in cyber circles, it is regarded as a major plus that the paper has embraced, to use the jargon, "a cloud adoption strategy".

 

(Reuters) - Business software maker NetSuite could overtake market leader SAP within a decade as cloud computing becomes popular with bigger and bigger companies, Chief Executive Zach Nelson told Reuters.

NetSuite and other software-as-a-service companies allow businesses to save on their own hardware, space and electricity bills by having their software hosted in remote data centers -- the "cloud" -- and accessing it over the Web.

Software as a service was initially embraced by small companies, who lacked the resources to manage their own IT and liked the fact they paid for it by monthly subscriptions instead of the traditional large, upfront license fees.

According to a study by Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd., the total market of cloud computing in India stands at $110 million today and is expected to reach a figure of about $1,084 million by 2015.
The study, titled ‘Cloud Computing in India: Opportunities and Way Forward’, also highlighted that in the cloud computing market in India, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has witnessed the most rapid uptake until now. As components of the overall cloud market, SaaS in India is likely to reach a mark of $650 million by 2015, while Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) markets cumulatively would touch $434 million each by then.

There are several multinational and Indian companies entering the cloud space and trying to drive business relevance of its solutions for the Indian customers. Divulging details on the SaaS market, the report said that the domestic market for SaaS is estimated to be about $66 million and is currently dominated by Collaborative Applications, CRM, ERP and Email workloads.
Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd, said, "The next wave of transformation in the Indian IT industry is ‘Cloud Computing’. This is indeed a perfect storm. The only difference is that, this storm is destructive only to companies who are not willing to change, while it is a huge opportunity for others."
"Cloud computing has allowed the smaller ISVs access to customers that they could have never had through the use of market places. This has allowed smaller ISVs to be based on cloud platforms (such as Azure, App Engine, etc.) and make themselves available to global customers, thereby, significantly reducing their cost of sales. On the other hand, this has also increased the flexibility for end customers and increased the choice of products and services," added Natarajan.
In addition to the global providers of PaaS, Indian companies have also sprung up offering cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service. Several Indian companies are beginning to offer IaaS to leverage the untapped market potential, highlighted the report.
Praveen Bhadada, Engagement, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd, said, "The Indian market is extremely exciting for the adoption of cloud, if not more. The growth in IT spending in India is one of the fastest in the world and is expected to be higher than China soon. India being the world’s fastest growing mobile market with over 20 million subscribers added every month and the money that companies have invested for 3G services showcases the belief the large telecom providers have on data services in the Indian market. Also, over 500 million people form the middle class in India, and the products and services consumed by them are relevant to other emerging markets as well."

"All this clearly suggests that Indian customers are ideal for cloud offerings. Indian SMBs in specific, lack budgets, want business improvement, lack management bandwidth required to manage internal IT and are looking for rapid growth in the next few years. For all of this put together, ‘Cloud Computing’ is indeed the answer," added Bhadada.
Discussing the growth verticals for the adoption of cloud in India, Zinnov’s report highlighted that Telecom, IT-BPO and Retail have the highest spending on IT as a percentage of revenues; verticals like Telecom and BFSI are highly mature with their IT adoption and show higher potential towards cloud adoption going forward. In an effort to meet global standards, verticals such as Education, Healthcare, and Government show massive potential for cloud adoption in the immediate future.