Trends
SaaS marketers face skeptics
Software-as-a-service
(SaaS) adoption by small and medium-size
businesses (SMBs) increased by 58 percent to
15 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to
Forrester Research, as the market's early
adopters flocked to the SaaS siren song of
lower costs, quick deployment times and
mitigating IT staff constraints. During that
same period, however, nonusers' skepticism
widened, with increasing concerns about
total cost of ownership (TCO), integration,
security and application performance.
"To ensure that SMB SaaS
adoption glides smoothly into the early
majority phase, marketers will need to
address skeptics' concerns head-on," says
Forrester's Michael Speyer. "Marketers will
need to clearly demonstrate the TCO
advantages of SaaS, ensure that their
products have well-defined data integration and conversion
procedures, show price transparency, and
have well-articulated security and
data-protection stories.
In 2007, Forrester
estimates that SaaS adoption in the U.S. SMB
sector jumped 58 percent - from 9 percent in
2006 to 15 percent in 2007. Although the
12-month pipeline for future SaaS purchases
looks thin, Speyer explains, "SMBs are
likely to jump directly from being 'very
interested' to using, bypassing the pilot
phases that enterprise buyers prefer.
"As SMB SaaS adoption
exits its early adoption phase, SaaS
marketers will run into a broader majority
of SMBs that aren't buying the SaaS hype.
These SMBs are more risk averse and are
firmly grounded in an on-premise world."
To obtain insight into
this mindset, a Forrester survey found that:
SMBs favor on-premise
solutions by a wide margin. With only 4
percent of SMBs preferring a SaaS solution
and 63 percent preferring packaged or
customized applications, the SMB market has
its feet solidly planted in the on-premise
software world.
Overall concerns around
SaaS have become more widespread. Between
2006 and 2007, the number of respondents
citing TCO, integration, security or
application performance as adoption issues
increased significantly. SaaS marketers now
face more skeptical buyers, and the market's
low-hanging fruit has been picked.
Issues with integration
and customization run counter to software
product preferences. Sixty-two percent of
SMBs that say that they are not at all
interested in adopting SaaS cite integration
issues as an adoption barrier, making it the
second most prevalent concern about SaaS.
Similarly, 57 percent of disinterested SMBs
cite lack of customization as a SaaS
adoption barrier.
TCO and price model concerns will keep
wallets shut. With 79 percent of SMBs saying
that they need to prove a business case to
obtain funding for critical purchases and 59
percent using TCO to make the case, SaaS
marketers have to prove the
cost-effectiveness of their solutions,
especially when the SaaS solution is up
against an on-premise solution. Also, 45
percent of SMBs that are not at all
interested in SaaS state that complicated
pricing models are a concern. SaaS pricing
models that appear simple and inexpensive
(flat per-user monthly fees) can, in
reality, become costly and complex when
users sign up for different pieces of
functionality and support options.
Compounding these concerns is that vendors
have yet to set up SaaS distribution
channels that can effectively reach a broad
SMB market.
Spam volume could double in 2008
This is probably not a
surprise to Communications News
readers, but spam volumes are growing - fast.
Proofpoint, a provider of unified e-mail
security and data loss prevention solutions,
has seen enterprise spam volumes rise by
more than 50 percent during the first
quarter of 2008, accompanied by short-term
spikes of 60 percent or more.
The company's
observations measure the volume of spam
targeted to enterprises worldwide and
represent an average increase across
enterprises. Some enterprises have seen spam
volume increases as high as 200 percent in
the first quarter of 2008. Based on these
trends, spam volume could more than double
this year, continuing the trend of the last
two years.
"Botnets continue to
proliferate and are by far the dominant
source of spam," says Andres Kohn, vice
president of product management for
Proofpoint. "The massive computing power and
network resources associated with these
botnets allow spammers and scammers to
constantly increase the aggressiveness and
scale of their attacks."
Proofpoint's messaging
security experts recommend that enterprises
deploy both a combination of
connection-level protection with highly
accurate content-analysis features to combat
growing spam volume.
"Enterprises today need
to prepare themselves for two trends that
will continue for the foreseeable future:
rising spam volume and sudden, unpredictable
short spikes in spam volume," adds Michael
Osterman, president of Osterman Research.
"This means enterprises not only need highly
effective antispam technology, but also
effective capacity strategies that can
accommodate sudden wild fluctuations in
volume."
Now it's Enterprise 2.0
A majority of
organizations position Enterprise 2.0 as
critical or important to business goals and
objectives, but few organizations have a
clear understanding of Enterprise 2.0. The
single greatest factor impacting attitudes,
adoption rates and definitions is corporate
culture.
Those are among the
conclusions gleaned from a study of 441
end-users, conducted by AIIM, an enterprise
content-management association. For more
than 60 years, AIIM has helped users
understand the challenges associated with
managing documents, content, records and
business processes. AIIM defines Enterprise
2.0 as: "A system of Web-based technologies
that provide rapid and agile collaboration,
information sharing, emergence and
integration capabilities in the extended
enterprise." In other words, social software
used in the enterprise.
Key highlights of the
study:
- Forty-four percent of
respondents indicated that Enterprise
2.0 is imperative or significant to
corporate goals and objectives.
- Another 27 percent positioned
Enterprise 2.0 as having average impact
on business goals and success.
In the study, 74 percent
stated they have only a vague familiarity or
no clear understanding of Enterprise 2.0.
Market confusion further evidenced in the
study was the failure of respondents to
popularly select a common definition of
Enterprise 2.0.
One reason for this chasm
between appreciation of impact and a lack of
understanding of Enterprise 2.0 stems from
the strengths of Enterprise 2.0's
low-barrier, low-cost deployment.
Many organizations are
experimenting with facets of Enterprise 2.0,
but few take a holistic, strategic view to
deployment. Other findings:
- While age had some influence on
opinions and attitudes concerning
Enterprise 2.0, the study found that
corporate culture was a far more
influencing factor on organizational
adoption and success with Enterprise
2.0.
- Organizations that exhibited a
knowledge management-inclined culture
were much further ahead in both adoption
of Enterprise 2.0 and deriving value
from it.
Teleworking making strides
Private-sector employers
have taken significant steps to expand
telecommuting initiatives since a year ago,
and private-sector telecommuting adoption is
approaching the federal level, with 14
percent of private-sector employees
telecommuting, compared to 17 percent of
federal employees.
A survey by CDW, a
provider of technology products and services
to businesses, shows that 76 percent of
private-sector employers now provide
technical support for remote workers, up 27
percentage points over 2007.
Federal agencies remain
strong advocates for telecommuters, with 56
percent of IT professionals indicating that
their agencies provide IT support for
telecommuters. Since 2005, federal IT
support for telecommuting, also called
telework, has grown 23 percent, according to
a year-over-year trend analysis of telework
survey data.
IT professionals in both
sectors say security is their top concern
about telework, with 42 percent of federal
IT professionals and 27 percent of
private-sector IT professionals indicating
it is their most pressing challenge.
Fifty-six percent of
federal agencies and 74 percent of
private-sector employers authenticate
telecommuters separately from the remote
computers they use, ensuring that they know
not only what devices are accessing their
networks, but also who is at the keyboard.
Moreover, nearly 70 percent of federal and
private-sector employers are providing the
computers and other equipment that
telecommuters use, adding an additional
measure of control.
Despite those security
protections, the survey uncovered a gap in
awareness that could introduce security
weaknesses: 21 percent of federal employees
and 31 percent of private-sector employees
say they are not aware of their
organization's corporate security policies,
potentially opening the door to behaviors
that risk security breaches.
Attacks now mostly Web-based
A recent Internet
security threat report issued by Symantec
concludes that the Web is now the primary
conduit of attack activity, as opposed to
network attacks, and that online users can
increasingly be infected simply by visiting
everyday Web sites. The report is derived
from data collected by millions of Internet
sensors, first-hand research and active
monitoring of hacker communications, and
provides a global view of the state of
Internet security.
In the past, users had to
visit intentionally malicious sites or click
on malicious e-mail attachments to become a
victim of a security threat. Today, hackers
are compromising legitimate Web sites and
using them as a distribution medium to
attack home and enterprise computers.
Symantec noticed that attackers are
particularly targeting sites that are likely
to be trusted by end-users, such as social
networking sites.
Attackers are leveraging
site-specific vulnerabilities that can then
be used as a means for launching other
attacks. During the last six months of 2007,
there were 11,253 site-specific cross-site
scripting vulnerabilities reported on the
Internet; these represent vulnerabilities in
individual Web sites. Only 473 (about 4
percent) of them, however, had been patched
during the same period, representing a
window of opportunity for hackers looking to
launch attacks.
Phishing also continues
to be a problem, according to the Symantec
report. In the last six months of 2007,
Symantec observed 87,963 phishing
hosts - computers that can host one or more
phishing Web sites. This is an increase of
167 percent from the first half of 2007.
Eighty percent of brands targeted by
phishing attacks during the study period
were in the financial sector.
The report also found
that attackers are seeking confidential
end-user information that can be
fraudulently used for financial gain and are
less focused on the computer or device
containing the information. In the last six
months of 2007, 68 percent of the most
prevalent malicious threats reported to
Symantec attempted to compromise
confidential information.
Short Takes
Secure access
The University of Minnesota has selected Secure Computing's Secure SafeWord as a two-factor authentication solution for 8,000 staff and faculty members. "Secure SafeWord provides an effective solution to the university's authentication needs," says Steve Cawley, vice president and chief information officer for the university. "It reduces risk and potential user frustration associated with fixed passwords." The solution replaces traditional password-based security and has been implemented on selected servers and Oracle Corp. databases, and currently is being implemented for enterprise Web applications.
Hospital care
Virtua Health, a multihospital healthcare system based in Marlton, N.J., is implementing an IP communications migration that includes all aspects of NEC Unified Solutions' UNIVERGE360 portfolio - from infrastructure and applications to services, ongoing support and monitoring. Virtua also selected NEC's UNIVERGE UM8500 platform for unified messaging, telephone and call systems and patient find me/follow me. "Our primary focus is providing the best care possible for our patients, and reliable, streamlined communications is critical for us to make this mission a reality," says Maria Foschi, assistant vice president, information services.
Wireless access
Barnard College has selected Meru Networks to provide student residence halls on its New York City campus with high-speed IEEE 802.11n wireless network coverage. This summer, Barnard will deploy approximately 150 Meru 802.11n-enabled wireless access points in five campus dormitories, providing students with high-performance wireless coverage when they return for the fall term. According to Thom Sobczak, director of management information and network services, "Our wired infrastructure was old and prohibitively expensive to replace, and wireless had evolved to the point where it was a valid option for primary student networking."
Linen change
Anna's Linens, a $300 million specialty retailer, has purchased Stampede Technologies' Application Acceleration Series to achieve network- and application-performance increases sufficient to allow the company to improve end-user productivity without costly network infrastructure upgrades to its 255 stores. The solution is a two-sided hardware/software acceleration solution for maximizing performance and bandwidth utilization of enterprise applications. "We selected Stampede because of the great performance of their solution, which reduced bandwidth and substantially improved response times of our applications to our stores," says Lynn Negrete, senior director of IT.