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Another influential US business analyst has weighed into the cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) debate.  McKinsey & Co analyst Will Forest’s presentation goes into considerable detail on definitions and where the technology is making its impact.

The presentation supports what we have been saying for the past few months:  cloud services and SaaS can provide significant benefits to small and medium sized businesses – especially when those businesses don’t already have cash and resources tied up in expensive business software, data centres or storage.  This is because it gives smaller businesses access to these applications and functions without the overhead.

Is the cloud mature enough to help large enterprises save money?  Maybe.  But frankly, businesses of that size have the budget to experiment.  Smaller businesses don’t – so they are likely to simply get on with their business and take advantage of the SaaS model, as Gooroo’s recent survey says.

If you’d like to find out more about what our software can do, we’re exhibiting at the Business Growth show, Ramada Piccadilly, Manchester, Wednesday 22^nd April.  It’s free to enter.

Germany may beat us at football, but they lag behind both the UK and France in business uptake and use of software as a service (SaaS), according to a new Gartner survey announced recently.

In its “User Survey Analysis: Usage Plans for SaaS Application Software, France, Germany and the UK 2009” report, Gartner found 71% of French survey respondents said their organisation currently uses SaaS for business applications, compared to 68% in the UK and just 45% in Germany.

“France is only ahead by couple of percentage points, so it is not a massive difference to the UK,” said Chris Pang, principal analyst at Gartner. “In France, the high adoption rate is probably explained as there are a few more local vendors offering SaaS solutions … it is usually small scale accounting solutions in France.”

The Gartner survey focused on companies in the SOHO, SME and large enterprise sectors, with most in the mid market area.  And in several ways it echoed the findings of Gooroo’s own survey of SME attitudes to cloud services and SaaS, reported here a few days ago.

For example, Gartner says the economic downturn will decelerate purchasing of any new software, but SaaS is more resistant as it is normally paid out of operating budgets.  Our survey found that cost considerations were key for businesses choosing cloud apps.

The Gartner survey respondents were also clear on their motivations for using or considering using SaaS in 2009.  Most agreed that they choose SaaS primarily because they considered it more cost-effective than an on-premises application. Other reasons given included ease of deployment and internal resource constraints – points which again echo our own survey.

So it certainly looks good for SaaS and cloud apps in the coming year.