To SaaS or not, that is the question

Content

• Executive summary
• In a nutshell
• Ovum view
• About this report
• Recommendations
• The ascendance of SaaS
• In terminology, the cloud embraces SaaS
• Why now?
• Which applications suit SaaS?
• Don't bother asking for an SLA
• Limited liability
• Ask for service histories
• Expect and plan for outages
• Integrating SaaS to play nicely with others
• A common concern
• Help is at hand
• SaaS vendors are on the integration trail
• Wait for the integration bus, or start walking now?
• Integration as criterion
• Other issues
• Customization can be limited
• Your pipes will be fat enough probably
• Ensuring an escape route
• How secure is the cloud?
• Protecting sensitive data is a priority
• Supplier interrogation as security practice
• Data at rest
• Data in motion
• Data in use
• Third-party testing of the castle walls
• Data privacy in a public place
• The bottom line is always cost
• What's the rent?
• Predicting break-even against on-premise costs
• TCO is not the whole story
• Implementation can be the clincher
• Calculating on-premise costs
• Hidden SaaS costs
• Pay as you go? Read the small print
• Commitment and named-seat catches
• Scale blindly and happily