Gartner: SaaS Applications a $10.7 Billion Market

Software-as-a-Service worldwide revenues for enterprise
applications will reach $10.7 billion in 2011, said Gartner on Dec. 14.

The market generated worldwide revenues of $7.9 billion
in 2009, and is forecast to reach $9.2 billion for 2010, according to the
analyst firm. While growth was strong for 2010, with a 15.7 percent jump over
2009 revenues, "the market is projected for stronger growth in 2011," with a
16.2 percent increase over 2010, Gartner said.

The "significant industry buzz" surrounding SAAS and
other off-premises models has "shifted" to cloud computing, according to the
report. Gartner analysts estimated that 75 percent of the "current" SAAS
delivery revenue could be considered cloud services. As the "SAAS model matures
and converges with cloud services models," the breakdown could exceed 90
percent by 2014, the analysts said.

The challenge is to be able to clearly identify SAAS from
all other off-premise products. Since SAAS and cloud are "hot concepts," many
suppliers are rebranding their hosting, application management, or application
outsourcing capabilities as SAAS or are claiming their solutions are "in the
cloud," said Sharon Mertz, a research director at Gartner.

For more, read the eWeek story: Gartner Predicts $10.7 Billion Market for Enterprise SAAS Applications.