MKT-461 The Business Appliance: Flexible Functionality for a Broad Range of Computing Needs

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The Business Appliance: Flexible Functionality for a Broad Range of Computing Needs

Document:                      MKT-461
Date of Publication:          April 30, 2008
Number of Pages:            6
Lead Author(s):                Charlie Burns, Mark Koenig
Price:                              $195 USD

Perspective Summary:

Regardless of company size, most IT organizations are tasked with multiple common objectives. Ongoing Saugatuck research has shown that chief among these objectives are: improve service levels, maintain security, reduce costs, and deliver new or enhanced functionality to support their end users’ dynamic business processes. As the IT organizations strive to meet these objectives, they are embracing solutions ranging from packaged applications which run on their internal infrastructure, to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings which run on a provider’s infrastructure.

Any new solution poses two common challenges for any IT organization:

	Integration with existing internal infrastructure, applications, and data bases; and
	Ongoing maintenance.

As numerous IT vendors attempt to cash in on the increasing popularity of solutions, they are learning that the challenges above are becoming key criteria in the selection process. Not surprisingly, while each vendor’s sales efforts are well-intentioned, their approaches to addressing these two challenges can leave users confused.

Recently, appliance computing (see Note 1) has been gaining popularity and credibility as a means of addressing both challenges. As users are finding, the IT appliance is flexible and can deliver a broad range of business functionality (see Strategic Perspective IT Appliances: Too Good to Ignore?, MKT-442, 12Mar08).

In this Strategic Perspective, we describe how the appliance form factor has evolved, both technically and functionally, and provide insights into how the evolution will continue with the creation of a broad range of business appliances that are likely to be widely adopted in the market.

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