Gartner and IDC bet on SaaS

Almost simultaneously two major analyst firms Gartner and IDC presented their forecasts on SaaS market. According to Gartner's report, SaaS revenues within the enterprise software market in 2010 will grow by 14.1% compared to last year (from $7.5 billion to $8.5 billion). Last year, total SaaS revenue was 10% of all software sales, and in 2014 this figure will increase to 16%. The IDC forecasts are even more optimistic. According to IDC last year the volume of SaaS market was already $13.1 billion, and by 2014 it will reach $40.5 billion, i.e. it will grow by 25.3% per year. The volume of the traditional software market will drop (in 2010 - by $ 7 billion). The analysts say that the main reasons for this rapid growth of SaaS popularity are: the need for companies of all sizes to get their finances tight, the widely distributed teams needing a robust collaborative environment, the need to access business applications from mobile devices and the younger workforce wanting to use the latest technologies they are familiar with.