Author: Mike West In this Strategic Perspective, we take a close look at the most important business challenges impacting Finance, HR, Procurement and IT and the very high degree of involvement of each of these four key functional areas in purchase decis ...

Author: Bruce Guptill On August 1 2010, the telecom ministry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it would suspend BlackBerry services, including instant messaging, email and web browsing, beginning October 11 due to a long-running dispute wi ...

Author: Lee Geishecker Recently, we published Strategic Perspectives on BI and CPM as they relate to the Cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In this Strategic Perspective, we focus specifically on the intersection of SMEs and BI / CPM in the Cloud. ...

Author: Bruce Guptill A comparison of Saugatuck 2009 and 2010 data regarding SaaS buyer preferences indicates some significant shifts in the types of channels that buyers look to – or don’t look to. This Strategic Perspective uses the latest Saugatuck gl ...

Authors: Robert McNeill, Sarah McNee Analysis of Saugatuck’s most recent global Cloud Business Solution / Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) survey results indicates that European executives are aggressively learning about and adopting SaaS as a key IT resourc ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Lee Geishecker While Saugatuck is well-known for its survey research and analysis, our work really centers on interaction and dialogue with those who buy, sell, implement and use IT, especially in user enterprise settings. And dis ...

Author: Mike West In this Strategic Perspective, we introduce a strategic framework for managing the Cloud transition. Beginning with the “Cloud Decision,” we examine the four key elements of the framework, “Planning,” “Procurement,” “Development” and “P ...

Author: Charlie Burns In June, announcement of Nimbula’s hybrid / private Cloud strategy and offerings, and the announcement of RedHat Cloud Foundations prompted increased discussion of the tradeoffs between Public and Private Cloud IT infrastructures (p ...

Authors: Mike West, Robert McNeill, Bruce Guptill The IT industry is in a major transition, impacted by several trends concurrently that have led to increasing partnering and consolidation, as major vendors seek to become the sole source for offerings up ...

Authors: Robert McNeill, Adam Weidenbaum The world has never been as flat. Barriers to entry into the outsourcing market are getting lower.  Providers can leverage cheaper IT provided by new cloud computing architectures. Regulations, standards and co-op ...

Author: Lee Geishecker Users need to be very cautious that they don’t rush into software decisions when moving to the Cloud. For example, user executives should not always assume that they will automatically stay with their current business applications ...

Author: Bill McNee Microsoft held its annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) this week in Washington, D.C. As expected, Microsoft continued to emphasize that it was embracing the Cloud at the core of its current and future strategy. While a more deta ...

Author: Charlie Burns As a result of multiple factors, including continued marketing emphasis by Citrix and VMware, virtualization of desktops is increasingly a subject of evaluation and planning by IT organizations. However, customers are not always ful ...

Authors: Mike West, Bruce Guptill Saugatuck Technology’s latest survey research indicates that more than half of all user firms worldwide plan on utilizing Cloud solutions for even their most core business operations within the next two to three years. A ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Bill Kirwin Saugatuck’s ongoing research into the progression of knowledge worker toolsets, including collaborative applications and productivity suites, has provided a number of insights into the early-stage, large-scale adoption ...

Authors: Mike West, Bruce Guptill Saugatuck’s ongoing research into Cloud business solutions has indicated three defined tiers of Cloud-based collaboration solutions: Tier One – Task-oriented Collaboration (Email, Conferencing) Tier Two – Interactive ...

Author: Bruce Guptill This week, Saugatuck published its annual SaaS/Cloud Business Solutions survey report for subscribers to our Continuous Research Service (CRS). In that report, we note that for several years, Collaborative solutions have been the cl ...

Authors: Lee Geishecker, Bruce Guptill In a recent Strategic Perspective, we presented four Key Issues that we see as important areas of inquiry in understanding Cloud Computing as it relates to Business Intelligence (BI), Corporate Performance Managemen ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill,  Bill McNee, Mike West, Charlie Burns, Robert McNeill, Lee Geishecker This summary data report provides fact-based insight into business and IT user business drivers, Cloud Business Solution / SaaS adoption trends, benefits, c ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Charlie Burns The public announcements this week of Nimbula’s hybrid / private Cloud strategy and offerings, and the announcement of RedHat Cloud Foundations, fan the rising flames of debate and questions regarding the future of P ...

Author: Charlie Burns In the second half of 2007 Saugatuck postulated that customer IT management would undergo two dramatic and simultaneous changes. These changes, an evolution from managing assets to supporting business processes, and a transition fro ...

Authors: Bill McNee, Adam Weidenbaum, Sarah McNee For the past five years, Saugatuck has annually surveyed senior business, finance and IT executives globally about their top business priorities in the coming year. The purpose of this research is to bett ...

Authors: Robert McNeill, Mike West, Sarah McNee As Cloud Computing moves into the large enterprise and becomes an embedded part of IT and the business, customers are turning to a new wave of Cloud Facilitator (see Note 1) to help guide them through Cloud ...

Author: Bruce Guptill This Strategic Perspective presents analysis of recent Saugatuck survey data regarding how various providers’ technological capabilities are ranked by buyers of Cloud Business Solutions (a.k.a. SaaS). We were not surprised by the ty ...

Authors: Bill McNee, Lee Geishecker Last week, NetSuite announced their NetSuite Manufacturing Edition. NetSuite Manufacturing Edition is offered via an OEM agreement with Rootstock Software, a 2-year old VC-backed start-up from San Ramon, CA. NetSuite w ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Brian Dooley Analysis of Saugatuck’s most recent global Cloud business solution / SaaS survey results indicate that the Asia-Pacific region, including India, China, Japan and Australia, may be leap-frogging ahead of US and Europea ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Robert McNeill, Mike West, Charlie Burns Consumer tastes – especially the influence of consumer-focused devices, services, interfaces and applications – appear to have overtaken legacy enterprise business as a leading force shapin ...

Author: Mike West Platform as a Service (PaaS) is essentially a middleware-based platform to enable the development and deployment of Cloud Business Solutions. Each PaaS offering brings its own formula for delivering value. A PaaS offering may be based e ...

Author: Charlie Burns Saugatuck’s ongoing research shows that customer IT organizations are increasingly adopting Cloud Computing offerings to address two significant challenges: Managing costs and facilitating their support of an increasingly dynamic bu ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Saugatuck analysis of recent and historical browser development and usage data indicates that Microsoft has significant challenges to overcome among developers, including its partners, as the firm works hard to shift the world’s la ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Participation in industry events is a key aspect of Saugatuck Technology “real world” research. Meeting and talking with the variety of user and vendor executives and staff at different events provides great insight and context. In ...

Author: Lee Geishecker Saugatuck’s ongoing research into the progression of Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IaaS) has yielded a number of insights into the challenges confronting adopters and vendors of Cloud Computing. We ...

Author: Robert McNeill The pillars that built and supported traditional BPO are under severe pressure. Labor arbitrage, old technologies, and traditional business models limit effectiveness. Cloud IT enables new, better, and more capable pillars upon whi ...

Authors: Bill McNee, Mike West, Lee Geishecker Earlier this week, Saugatuck CEO Bill McNee ventured to Orlando, Florida for SAPs SapphireNow conference – joining more than 10,000 business and IT users, partners, analysts and media attendees. While he cou ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Microsoft Corp. took the wraps off of its Office 2010 software this week at a special launch event in New York City. The launch was subject to significant media and industry analyst coverage, Microsoft itself helped stoke the hyperb ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Bill Kirwin Master Brands are those vendors (and services providers) that dominate and influence IT marketplaces, technologies and/or user accounts. In this Strategic Perspective, we apply our re-examined Master Brand framework to ...

Authors: Bill McNee, Charlie Burns This week Saugatuck’s Founder and CEO, Bill McNee, attended IBM’s annual software conference, Impact 2010, in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year’s event – with business agility as its major theme – drew approximately 6,000 at ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Bill Kirwin As new market segments mature, certain vendors will emerge as dominant players with the capability to shape and establish direction for that market. In this Strategic Perspective, we re-examine and refine Saugatuck’s M ...

Author: Lee Geishecker According to recent Saugatuck research, Corporate Performance Management is not as high-priority as Business Intelligence from a plan to purchase and deployment perspective when thinking about business solutions in the Cloud. Howev ...

Author: Robert McNeill Effective IT asset management strategies need to be implemented to manage Cloud Computing and “SaaS sprawl”. An IT and business administration nightmare is emerging as SaaS and Cloud vendor relationships proliferate in an opportuni ...

Author: Bruce Guptill On Tuesday April 27, 2010, Salesforce.com and VMware jointly announced VMforce, a new Cloud-based platform for Java-based enterprise application development. As announced, VMforce will use Salesforce’s Force.com physical infrastruc ...

Author: Bill McNee Earlier this week, Saugatuck Technology was scheduled to speak at the EuroCloud France conference in Paris (April 20, 2010). Unfortunately, clouds of volcanic ash kept Saugatuck CEO Bill McNee from flying across the Atlantic to deliver ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Lee Geishecker IT and business executives cannot afford to ignore their applications strategy; the blueprint for all business management software should not be static. As business needs change, so must the supporting software. Thi ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Developers, partners, and users of SUSE Linux as distributed by Novell have seen the company go through a stunning range of disruptive events within the past several weeks. The future of Novell, and therefore of the SUSE Linux distr ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Two once-great titans of their industries – Palm and Novell – have fallen far, and fallen hard, to the point where they are seeking buyers, and face being divested into their component parts by potential buyers. While vastly differe ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Robert McNeill New Saugatuck research and recent interaction with public-sector IT executives, government agency IT buyers and managers, consulting firms, and related entities, indicates that the pace of widespread SaaS adoption w ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Cisco Systems Inc. on March 9, 2010 announced its new CRS-3 network routing system. The CRS-3 represents an important industry step toward three goals: Increasing the availability of bandwidth, which should reduce the costs of bandw ...

Author: Robert McNeill Moving to cloud computing and SaaS will not be smooth sailing for IT services providers. Consider the following: By year-end 2012, 75 percent or more of SMBs, large enterprises and public sector organizations will be using one or m ...

Author: Mike West Saugatuck’s 2010 survey of nearly 800 user executives worldwide – including significant drill-down sampling of HR, Finance and Procurement professionals – indicates that HR executives believe Cloud business (or SaaS) solutions can contr ...

Author: Robert McNeill The service provider community – inclusive of IT outsourcers, business process outsourcers and systems implementation providers (SIs) – is the latest, traditional service line now realizing that the full impact brought about by the ...