As the economy tries to deal with a financial crisis that has impacted jobs, markets, and revenues, IT has to deal with its impact on budgets and plans.
SaaS, with its ability to provide access to software without the need for capital investment, implementation, or operational management can look like exactly the right answer – and sometimes it will be.
But enterprises need to understand how to select SaaS with the proper consideration so that it can be managed to the reliability, quality of service, and customer expectations your organization demands. Too, computing in the cloud has its own issues: Where is my data? Who is responsible for back-up? How do I protect against a small company with clever software disappearing? And how do I apply the same principles of governance to SaaS applications and users that I apply to internal ones?
Amy Wohl has been covering the SaaS market since its beginnings in the late 90’s. She is the author of the book Succeeding at SaaS: Computing in the Cloud. She speaks to dozens of SaaS ISVs and platform providers every month.
This session will look at how the economy is impacting IT and how SaaS will be implemented as a solution. It will emphasize the role of IT staff in managing SaaS applications to insure that they meet the standards of an enterprise data center.
A noted expert on the computer market, its products and dynamics, Amy Wohl has been observing, analyzing, commenting on, speaking and writing about, and consulting to the information industry for more than thirty years.
The focus of Wohl’s expertise and interest is the commercialization of new technology and the creation of new markets and business models. She has provided guidance to clients seeking to invest in or create and market products in areas ranging from word processing, desktop publishing, and office automation to voice processing, development tools, digital rights management, new operating systems (and their platforms and interfaces), Linux, Java, and web services. She is a contributing editor to Spectrum Middleware, and a frequent contributor to the trade and general business press on the Internet, software, computing, computer trends, and technology.
Current interests include SOA and Software as a Service (SaaS). Her book, Succeeding at SaaS: Computing in the Cloud, was published in the fall of 2008.
Wohl is president of Wohl Associates, a consulting firm established in 1984, whose clients include every major systems and software vendor. She has also consulted to the U.S., state, and foreign governments, to major corporation, and to universities and hospitals.
Amy Wohl is Editor and Publisher of "Amy D. Wohl's Opinions".
She also writes a "Blog on SaaS".