In a new study, market research firm IDC projects that over the next
five years, the business analytics software-as-a-service market will
grow more than three times as fast as the total business analytics
software market.
The study, “Worldwide Business Analytics Software-as-a-Service
Forecast, 2008-2013,” shows that the number of business analytics SAAS
users will grow at rate of 22.4 percent through 2013, growing rapidly
from an initially small base. However, market revenue will remain low
relative to on-premise software throughout the period, IDC said.
"The business analytics SAAS market is poised for rapid growth as
more organizations turn to cloud-based computing and alternative
deployment options," said Brian McDonough, research manager for IDC's
Business Analytics Solutions research service, in a statement. "Growth
expectations must be tempered as revenue generation gains traction
behind user adoption."
As more and more business analytics software providers move to
address increasing market demand for software that is updated
frequently, hosted offsite, and can be purchased on a subscription
basis, several factors will help aid in driving this growth. According
to an IDC press release on its business analytics study, these factors
include:
• Capital
expenditure policies and budget constraints make SAAS offerings more
attractive as they enable departments to subscribe to software services
using operational budgets.
• IT resources are
strained and there is insufficient time to build, buy, or evaluate
specific solutions for various business problems, putting control of
technology decisions into the hands of the business user.
• Additional
software functionality built on new platforms is suitable for SAAS
delivery since there are well-established best practices that can be
configured, rather than customized, through a flexible platform to suit
most business needs.
IBM announced plans to build analytics cloud services in the spring of 2009. Later, on Nov. 16, 2009, IBM announced its private cloud computing environment
for business analytics, which launches internally with more than a
petabyte of information, equivalent to 20 million four-drawer filing
cabinets filled with text, which stacked end-to-end would circle the
entire planet Earth. And to share the success models of this internal
project, IBM also announced a new solution for clients to build their
own private cloud environments based on this architecture, called IBM
Smart Analytics Cloud.
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