Another survey confirming the growth of SaaS, a new survey by Cutters Consortium confirms that the SaaS movement is in full throttle. Customer interest and adoption of this new on-demand model is real and continuing to grow at a strong pace.

"This growth is being fueled by shifting customer preference and a solid track record of success among early SaaS adopters. Unlike overhyped technology fads of the past, which were primarily pushed by vendors, today's SaaS market is evolving out of genuine user needs and real 'game changing' technological innovations," says Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Jeff Kaplan.

Below are a couple of charts on the same:

Kaplan says "Each of these trends has led to a surprising level of user adoption, not only among small and medium-sized businesses that were unable to afford traditional enterprise applications in the past, but also larger enterprises that have grown tired of the low ROI of their existing applications. Cutter's latest survey finds that the momentum from these trends is accelerating."

Update: Computerworld seems to have had an phone interview with kaplan and here is an interesting excerpt
Kaplan found satisfaction rates of 90% among users last year and 80% this year. "I was a little surprised we saw the level of slippage we've seen," he said in a phone interview.

The diminished satisfaction represents a "warning sign for both users and vendors," he said. Users need to make sure they don't have unrealistic expectations, and they must evaluate the capability of vendors before selecting a service, he says.

Source: 1

Prashanth Rai