Saugatuck Research Reports are deep-dive 20-40 page strategic impact reports concerning important “meta” trends driving the IT industry, and around which significant market momentum is (or will be) occurring. Research Reports provide an executive-level perspective related to key trends and market drivers, supported by fact-based research that often includes Saugatuck-based web surveys, executive interviews and vendor briefings with established and emerging players.

In addition to viewing the list of Research Reports below, organized by date, please take advantage of our Advanced Research Search capability to input a free-form text search, or the ability to search by author, by date, or by topic area -- or visit our Research Library by Topic.

Enterprise Ready, or Not – SaaS Enters the Mainstream (Drilldown Data Report) (M. Koenig, M. West, C. Burns, B. McNee, B. Guptill, A. Perrin, 27 pages, SSR-486)

This 27-page Drilldown Data Report supplements Research Report SSR-460, published on July 10, 2008. It details the disruptive evolution, status, and future of SaaS within user enterprises, from basic applications to cloud-based computing - including the effects of these changes on vendor strategies, offerings, and business models. It provides a comprehensive look at the state of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market, supported by a rigorous research agenda that includes worldwide web research, more than 30 vendor briefings and two dozen user executive interviews.

Solely available to current CRS subscription research clients, as a value-added deliverable from Saugatuck.

Enterprise Ready, or Not - SaaS Enters the Mainstream (SSR-460, 07-10-08, 42 pages, $$$)

The explosive growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) may be netted down to two core realities that will shape SaaS markets for years to come:

These are two key conclusions that Saugatuck Technology Inc. examines in its latest research study on SaaS, titled "Enterprise-ready Or Not: SaaS Enters the Mainstream." The 44-page study details the disruptive evolution, status, and future of SaaS within user enterprises, from basic applications to cloud-based computing - including the effects of these changes on vendor strategies, offerings, and business models. 

This comprehensive study mines Saugatuck’s rich SaaS research program to provide insight and guidance for users and vendors regarding:

“Enterprise Ready, or Not – SaaS Enters the Mainstream” includes data, analysis, insight and guidance based on Saugatuck’s market-leading SaaS research, including our 2008 worldwide user survey conducted with BusinessWeek Research Services, briefings and interviews with 30 leading and emerging SaaS providers, and in-depth interviews with user executives in key markets.

The Many Faces of Virtualization: Understanding a New IT Reality (SSR-420, 12-28-07, 28 pages, $$$)

Attracted by dazzling promises of dramatic reductions in the complexity and costs of infrastructures, user IT executives have made virtualization the hottest topic in many years.

All too frequently, the general concept of virtualization is equated with the specifics of server virtualization. That is because server virtualization, or more precisely, mainframe virtualization has been a fixture of the IT landscape for decades. But virtualization can be applied to all IT resources from servers to storage to networks to desktops and is not one-size-fits-all.

As IT vendors move to cash in on the growing popularity of virtualization, they are touting a growing array of offerings to implement, facilitate, organize, mitigate, and/or manage various aspects of virtualization. Not surprisingly, while each vendor’s sales efforts are well-intentioned, the numerous approaches to virtualization and a cacophony of terms can leave users overwhelmed or confused.

Open Source Software: The Next Disruptive IT Influence (SSR-395, 10-22-07, 30 pages, $$$)

Open source software is everywhere within user organizations. It is considered acceptable and desirable by user executives for all software categories, in all aspects of the enterprise. Open source software is sought out, considered and evaluated for more than half of all business software acquisitions worldwide.  

User organizations see significant business and competitive value from their use of open source software. Users are drawn to open source due to its:  

As a result, open source software has a large and growing, and increasingly unseen, presence within user organizations. The presence of open source is much larger than previously reported – and getting harder to audit and manage. Low cost and ability to manipulate source code means that open source software is (and will be) integrated into  user environments, commercial software solutions, and software delivered as a service (SaaS).

It is this mixed-source, “hidden” presence that will change the nature of business software, the software industry itself, and user IT management, within three to five years. A lack of software standardization, increasingly varied and complex code licensing agreements, community development environments, and vendors’ need to protect intellectually property (and customer bases) mean that user IT and Finance executives will have their hands full with spiraling requirements for managing technology, IT licensing, and vendor relationships. Vendors will have their own pressing issues, from new competitors to their own licensing issues – with vast changes in technology and product/service development methods and costs. 

Three Waves of Change: SaaS Beyond the Tipping Point (SSR-342, 05-03-07, 34 pages, $$$)

In the span of less than a year, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has gone from point-solution curiosity to mission-critical applications for user enterprises.  And according to research published this month by Saugatuck Technology, the next wave of SaaS is already being absorbed and adopted by user enterprises as platforms for multiple, critical business applications and processes. 

This Research Report provides a comprehensive look at the state of the SaaS industry and user adoption. The report is based in part on a new worldwide web survey of 250 senior business and IT executives, 30+ briefings with leading SaaS providers and 15 deep dive interviews with early adopter SaaS users. Among other things, the report provides an update to our SaaS adoption scenario, and fine-tunes our SaaS 2.0 vision in areas such as pricing and licensing, ecosystems and verticalization.

“SaaS is beyond the tipping point and accelerating into mainstream adoption,” states Saugatuck VP Mark Koenig, head of the SaaS research program and co-lead author of the new report. “We’re seeing breakthrough levels of SaaS acceptance for mission-critical computing, from SMBs to the largest enterprises worldwide. SaaS is not a curiosity – it’s mission-critical.”

“The second wave of SaaS as a next-generation business platform is already here, and already delivering powerful business advantages for user enterprises, “ adds Saugatuck VP Mike West, co-lead author of the report. “Users are already utilizing SaaS for transaction and collaboration marketplaces, and we’re starting to see a proliferation of SaaS ecosystems that offer portfolios of synergistic and integrated SaaS applications with business services.”

C-Team Research: Growth and Innovation Driving the Global Business Agenda (SSR325, 02-28-07, 15 pages, $$$)

While the pace of economic expansion will moderate in 2007, growth and innovation is clearly on the minds of the 443 senior business, finance and IT executives recently surveyed by Saugatuck Technology and BusinessWeek Research Services.

In fact, revenue growth outpaced both cost control and asset allocation by a 5-to-1 margin as the top business strategy for C-Team executives to improve their firm’s financial performance for 2007 -- implying a more than subtle shift in priorities -- and what looks like an emerging scenario of accelerated business spending rather than saving. In support of this shift, the top five business goals of C-Team executives are all revenue, customer and market share growth related -- with managing budgets and ROI measurement metrics falling precipitously in the rankings.

What is not yet clear is whether the desire for growth will be matched by dramatically accelerating IT investment over the next 12 months -- as IT spending in 2007 appears to lag relative to the business priorities that C-Team executives are embracing. As IT spending controls begin to loosen, however, we anticipate that enterprises will begin to shift toward larger investments, as IT and the business better align to evolving business priorities.

SOA Reality Check: Three Waves of Adoption through 2012 (SSR-305, 12-28-06, 30 pages, $$$)

Depending on who you talk to, Service Orientation is either the biggest disruptive innovation in software, or merely a rerun of object-oriented programming and development. Billions are being spent by vendors to promote Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as the way forward for businesses struggling to create more flexible, agile business processes while reducing the cost of application development and management. Given all the “noise” in the market about SOA, Saugatuck determined that it was time to find out what users are really doing with SOA – hence we set out to interview over forty senior IT executives to find out what they are – and are not – doing with SOA. Hence the title of this report – a “SOA Reality Check.”

When Saugatuck embarked on our research program in the summer of 2006, our goal was to conduct a real-world analysis and assessment of SOA adoption. Our comprehensive look at the current state of SOA deployment includes understanding the types of applications where SOA is being applied, the degrees of enterprise compared to point solution deployment, whether SOA adoption is being led by business or by IT leadership, and the depth of enterprise SOA penetration. We also lay out a vision for how SOA will likely evolve in three main "waves" of deployment over the next five years. 

The IT Utility: Journey to a Virtual Reality, 2006 - 2010 (SSR-281, 10-18-06, 28 pages, $$$)

Utility Computing. On-demand Computing. Enterprise Agility. The IT Utility. Real Time Infrastructure.  Regardless of the label, the basic concept is remarkably consistent. Enterprise executives want information technology acquired, delivered, used, paid for, and managed in a manner similar to the way we use electricity, natural gas, telephone service, and other commoditized utilities.

The attraction of the IT Utility concept for users has three basic elements: Savings, Reliability/Availability, and Agility/Flexibility.  But what is the reality of Utility Computing? Is it really a desirable place to be? And how – and when – will we get there?  Most importantly, given the real-world complexities of migrating to an IT utility infrastructure, is user interest justified?

SaaS 2.0: Software-as-a-Service as Next-Gen Business Platform (SSR-239, 04-26-06, 34 pages,  $$$)

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is one of the most compelling and challenging IT and business innovations of the past two decades. Not surprisingly, SaaS is generating tremendous interest, heated debate, and a broad spectrum of opinion. Saugatuck’s latest Strategic Research Report shows that SaaS is at a fundamental “tipping point” between the current generation of software functionality delivered as a service (what Saugatuck calls SaaS 1.0), and the emerging generation of blended software, infrastructure, and business services arrayed across multiple usage and delivery platforms and business models (what Saugatuck calls SaaS 2.0).  

Based on a web survey with over 150 senior IT and business executives, 40 CIO interviews and 15 deep dive vendor briefings, the report examines the key trends driving SaaS adoption, evolving business motivators and the expected business impact of SaaS adoption. It provides a profile of the shifting mix of SaaS users and the types of applications they are demanding. The report also provides frameworks for optimizing next-generation SaaS provisioning and usage, and assesses the variety of vendor business models that are emerging.

Outsourcing Transformed: New Models and Methods (SSR-170, 05-19-05, 30 pages, $$$)

Significant thought-leadership and primary research-based research study that indicates that the growth in the outsourcing of IT and business processes not only will continue through 2010, but will be driven increasingly by firms making strategic shifts in their traditional business value and operations. The research includes interviews and surveys of more than 200 IT, finance and business executives worldwide.

The IT Utility: The Future of the Data Center 2004-2010 (SSR-150,  07-22-04,  21 pages, $$$) 

Thought leadership research report that provides an independent view of the future of the data center over the time period 2004-2010. It defines and assesses the key business and technology drivers and inhibitors that will have the greatest impact on how the future data center will evolve. Saugatuck believes that the IT Utility is the predominant driving force for change in the data center over 2004-2010, therefore the most important one for vendors selling products and services into the data center.

Pay-As-You-Go IT Services: Where's the Business Value? (SSR-148, 04-20-04, 54 pages, $$$)

Major multi-client study focusing on buyer trends, and key motivator and inhibitors concerning Pay-As-You-Go IT, a next-generation IT deployment and services model otherwise referred to as Utility Computing, Adaptive Enterprise or On Demand Computing. Study findings based on the results of a web and print/mail based survey with over 300 CFOs, CIOs and LOB executives, combined with detailed executive interviews. Co-published  with research partner CFO Research Services.

Utility Computing: A Hard Sell (SSR-141a, 07-31-03, 29 pages, $$$)
PowerPoint-based research summary highlighting the results from a web-based survey of more than 100 senior IT executives (user and vendor) focused on buyer demand for utility computing and pay-as-you go IT services. The objectives of the study included:

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