No dominant future for SaaS: Gartner

BANGALORE: Software as a Service ( SaaS) would have a role in the future of IT but not a dominant one as was thought earlier, according to IT research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.

Organisations should carefully assess their software needs in light of the current promises delivered by SaaS, it said.

"In 2009, within enterprise applications, SaaS represented 3.4 per cent of total enterprise spending, slightly up from 2008 at 2.8 per cent," David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow in Gartner Research said in a statement.

Gartner predicts that the global enterprise applications software market would reach USD 8.8 billion in 2010.

From the market perspective, most of the spending for SaaS is occurring in content, collaboration and communication and the customer relationship management markets. Collectively, they represented 65 per cent of the global enterprise applications software market in 2009.