Author: Mike West In this Strategic Perspective, we discuss a number of issues that make up the Cloud pricing conundrum with the intention of unraveling some of its complexity. We consider underlying costs, the elements of Cloud pricing, the value metric ...

Author: Bruce Guptill On August 15 2012, Saugatuck looked briefly at the wide and deep range of organizational, strategic, technological and market changes announced and confirmed by SMB business management software vendor Sage North America. This Strate ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Saugatuck research indicates the beginning of a shift from on-premises software through a hybridized, Cloud+on-premises phase, toward a pure-play Cloud acquisition and deployment model within the next four years. This Strategic Pers ...

Authors: Brian Dooley and Bruce Guptill Regional differences are critical in determining market requirements for the relative value of technologies and services, as well as in predicting significant trends in how Cloud-based businesses will develop. Saug ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Years of research regarding SaaS adoption plans, adoption and usage reinforce a critical pattern: Relative levels of SaaS business application adoption and use through the realistically plannable future have become very predictable. ...

Authors: Brian Dooley and Bruce Guptill Acquisition of SaaS and other Cloud-based IT and business services has always differed across the globe, due to factors such as relative market maturity, average business size, and state of the economy. We first p ...

Author: Bill McNee Earlier this quarter, Saugatuck began publishing the results of a deep-dive interview program conducted with large-enterprise CIOs and CTOs, with a focus on gathering first-person insights into the impact that Cloud is having on IT str ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Saugatuck’s just-completed 2012 global survey of SaaS/Cloud business solution adoption and use shows several patterns that indicate how the acquisition, use, and management of SaaS (and other Cloud-based IT services) is changing, ba ...

Authors: Bruce Guptill, Alex Bakker, Charlie Burns, Mike West, Bill McNee This document represents a comprehensive review and analysis of data gathered via Saugatuck‘s February 2012 global web survey of enterprise executives regarding SaaS/Cloud Busine ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Saugatuck’s latest global survey of executives and managers (see Note 1) shows very clearly that enterprises worldwide are still working their way through recovery mode, emphasizing improvement in operations, market presence, and cu ...

Author: Bruce Guptill The completion of Saugatuck’s latest global survey of SaaS/Cloud business solution adoption drives a re-examination and re-articulation of Saugatuck’s SaaS research agenda. This Strategic Perspective lays out that agenda throughout ...

Author: Bill McNee On Thursday, December 15, 2011, salesforce.com announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Rypple, an emerging Cloud-based provider of “social performance management” solutions – with a plan to rebrand the solution “ ...

Authors: Bill McNee, Bruce Guptill, Mike West On Saturday, December 3, 2011, SAP announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion, a roughly 10X multiple to estimated calendar year 2011 revenues (and 8X ...

Author: Mike West Integration redefines the meaning and the value of solutions and platforms in the Cloud. Instead of a standalone set of Cloud resources, integration enables both economy and synergy, innovation and reach, as solutions and technologies l ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Ongoing Saugatuck interview programs with independent software vendors (ISVs) worldwide indicate that the vast majority are moving toward a future in Cloud, but not necessarily a Cloud future. Uncertainty about Cloud adoption and us ...

Author: Mike West In June of this year we reached out to Aria, MetraTech, Monexa, RevX, Vindicia, and Zuora, all Cloud billing and payments providers we first assessed in depth in November 2009. We asked three brief questions designed to elicit from the ...

Author: Charlie Burns Four years ago, Saugatuck developed one of the first taxonomies for Cloud-based platforms and providers. Massive growth and market changes since then necessitate a review and recasting of some key types. This Strategic Perspective u ...

Author: Bruce Guptill Two IT provider announcements during the past week highlight the substantial types and levels of uncertainty and risk that IT executives must manage as they guide their enterprises toward and into Cloud IT and Cloud Business. Speci ...

Authors: Lisa Pierce and Bruce Guptill As companies slowly emerge from the recession, their contact centers are experiencing a surge in demand for services. However, few contact centers have all the necessary state-of-the-art equipment completely in plac ...

Authors: Brian Dooley and Bruce Guptill Advanced Analytics provides high-level data modeling capabilities that yield strategic benefits. Of particular importance today are Big Data applications including predictive analysis and customer profiling. There ...