Media Solutions looks into SaaS model to benefit revenue

He said that in today's cycle a company's IT infrastructure must be considered as a revenue driver not just a capital cost.

"With major economic indicators dropping and anxieties rising, business leaders are looking for ways to better manage cash flow, including revisiting investments in IT software and services. We have an IT solution known as SaaS that is affordable, efficient and has shown that it can improve the communications flow to the organisation's clients to a degree that can indeed enhance revenues," Alimohamed added.

Alimohamed confirmed that the Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies eliminates the need for annual software maintenance fees and continuous hardware and software upgrades.

"The good news is multi-fold. The SaaS approach really does offer the cost effective, efficient deployment of IT solutions without the need for a complicated, often expensive IT infrastructure. Plus, it is easy to understand and so eliminates the need for a top-heavy IT team," he said.

Recent research from IDC MEA, a market intelligence firm, confirms a growth trend for SaaS in 2009.

At a time when most industries and economies around the world are slashing their growth forecasts into single digits or even negative territory, IDC now expects SaaS growth to surge by more than 40 percent in the current year.

Globally, Alimohamed said SaaS is fast-gaining attention and winning customer adoption because of its attractive combination of accelerated deployment capabilities, and real cost savings.

SaaS, or Software as a Service, is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor, or service provider, and made available to customers via a network, typically the Internet.

Turning to the UAE, IDC estimates that local spend in IT services will also continue to grow rapidly, fuelled by the increasing complexity of IT and its impact on operational management across all economic sectors, among other reasons.

"SaaS offer answers to the crucial cost-management questions such as- am I paying the right price for IT services," Alimohamed said. "These solutions allow businesses to contract over our hosted network, rather than buying individual software licences and installing these applications on internal servers. Such applications include business staples such as e-mail, to more complex applications, such as CRM (customer relationship management)."

He concluded that SaaS also allows a pay-as-you-go cost optimisation.