Support for eVision’s technology and business strategy has been appearing more and more frequently in the recent IT press. While it is early days for the “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) model there are an increasing number of successful examples appearing and they are also reporting healthy growth rates.

Mark Jones of the Australian Financial Review, in his article “Web-based tools write a eulogy for software” (AFR, 4th April, 2006), describes a series of successful startups showing rapid growth in both the business to consumer, and business to business markets: NetSuite, Zoho, Writely, OpenOffice, RightNow, SaleForce.com, and others.

“Software-as-a-service” is a way of running traditionally client-server software directly over the internet through a browser. This is not a particularly new concept, as services such as web-based email have been around for many years. However, with rapidly increasing bandwidths, and the vastly improved capacity of the browser, many new software applications are moving away from their traditional client-server architecture to a fully web-based software architecture. Microsoft have recognized this trend:

“Today, the opportunity is to utilize the Internet to make software far more powerful by incorporating a services model which will simplify the work that IT departments and developers have to do while providing new capabilities.”

“The broad and rich foundation of the internet will unleash a ’services wave’ of applications and experiences available instantly over the internet to millions of users. Advertising has emerged as a powerful new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and delivery of software and services along with subscriptions and license fees. Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses.”

Bill Gates, Nov, 2005

eVision’s MessageXchange (MXC) is an on-demand software service for Integration. While most interest has been in ‘on-demand’ services for ERP and CRM, integration between new and old systems, between businesses and between trading community members is a fundamental requirement of an efficient eBusiness environment.

Of particular importance is the rate at which Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs) are embracing these technologies. The cost-efficiency for SMBs outsourcing the underlying infrastructure and complex technology is compelling. The MXC model allows the service provider to maintain the software application and infrastructure while the users have full access to software’s features via a Web interface.

MessageXchange enables Users to manage their B2B integrations with their customer directly. The benefit of this is that Users can focus on core business. The on-demand software model takes away the headache of complex hardware and software implementation and support, freeing the users to provide superior services to their customers.

A few Stats about SaaS:

• IDC projects SaaS to grow 26 percent annually, from $2.1 billion in 2002 to $8.1 billion in 2008.
• Gartner selected SaaS as one of the Top five technology trends for 2005.
• Gartner predicts that by 2010, 30 percent of new software will be delivered as SaaS and that less than 33% of ISVs will successfully make the transition to a SaaS model, but those that do will gain market share.
• According to IDC, worldwide spending on SaaS reached $4.2 billion in 2004, increasing 39% from 2003 to 2004, exceeding its original prediction of 29% growth worldwide from 2003 to 2004. (Source http://www.jamcracker.com/)

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