Business Software Predictions for 2010-2015

NOTES• Neither small upstart, nor a large organization can afford having locally-installed

(desktop) software. The only ones who can afford it are in the mid 2 tiers

• Larger companies that are regulated or sensitive to data loss will still host their own apps and data but will do so using the “cloud” model as in “it scales automatically with the app”

• For the enterprise market, there will always be a tug-of-war of large software suite behemoths and new nimble upsprings that just do things better, faster, cheaper.. Single vendor, integrated vs multiple-vendor but with much better usability.

• Employees must have a way to express their creativity when it comes to selecting or building new systems. This will be delivered by a combination of 3rd party SaaS services and On-premise PaaS platforms that allow for rapid application prototyping and deployment

• Everything that can be pulled out of the enterprise IT, will be, migrating to clouds supported by specialists

• Budgets for desktop support will be greatly reduced, further pushing the corporation toward web-based applications (web-based applications greatly diminish problems introduced by application compatibility and upgrades)

• SaaS offerings will get smarter, picking up enterprise-related workflows and access control

• There will be an attempt at either-or (SaaS or packaged), but it likely won’t work as development organizations can’t effectively produce both at the same time

• Microsoft will continue dominate on-premise, however the balance will begin shifting to SaaS as soon as SaaS figures out how to deal with security and compliance issues