SaaS on the Rise, But Public Cloud Confidence Wanes Post Snowden

Software as a service (SaaS) will remain the dominant cloud model for the foreseeable future.

That’s one prediction from Juniper Research’s newly released report, Cloud Computing – Enterprise Markets: SaaS, PaaS & IaaS, 2014-2018, which says revenue generated from enterprise SaaS will reach $53.5 billion in 2018, representing 59 percent of the enterprise public cloud computing market, up from just $23.2 billion in 2013.

The rise in SaaS is due in part to the relative maturity and widespread acceptance of the model, Juniper noted, as well as recognition of the comparative benefits and risks of commissioning cloud-based software.

The report suggests that enterprise take-up of PaaS (platform) and IaaS (infrastructure) solutions has been adversely impacted by concerns over data security, compliance and portability. Nevertheless, both PaaS and IaaS will experience significant growth over the forecast period as new applications – developed specifically for the cloud to harness workloads such as big-data analysis – benefit from the PaaS model. Service providers are increasingly providing multilingual support, and improving portability through initiatives such as Cloud Foundry, while consolidation of PaaS as an extension of other cloud services is trending upward.

IaaS is becoming increasingly attractive to SMBs and enterprises alike since it provides a high level of control over the software stack and security implementation, along with a growing understanding of the need for proper risk assessment.

The Juniper report also found that confidence in the public cloud has suffered following the Edward Snowden-NSA scandal, forcing service providers to rebuild trust. And due diligence is essential for potential customers to establish if, and what services, can be deployed in the cloud.

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