By Sonal Desai, NWC, Nov. 13 2007,
1700 hrs
With increasing cost of software maintenance
and the speed at which new features are getting
added cost-conscious IT managers are looking at
the network to deliver the latest at a fraction
of the cost, a model that has gained currency in
the recent past is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
According to a recent survey by Saugatuck,
the number of companies with over $1 billion
revenue who are planning to deploy SaaS of
mission critical applications has more than
quadrupled over the previous year, from 13 per
cent to 53 per cent.
According to Gowri Shankar Subramanian, CEO,
Aspire Systems, the acceptance of SaaS has
created a brand new market opportunity for the
outsourced product development industry in
India– making software applications SaaS-ready.
Aspire Systems, an outsourced product
development company, provides services in the
areas of new product development, product
advancement, product re-engineering, product
migration, maintenance, product implementation,
testing, support and documentation.
Subramanian said, “We have developed
architectural and engineering expertise through
our outsourced product development services. We
decided to enter the SaaS market after finding
that there is a demand for horizontal services
in terms of moving existing or new software
products into SaaS. We are developing
partnerships for the technology implementation,
hosting and monitoring and billing and metering
aspects of SaaS migration.” For example, Aspire
has partnered with Rackspace for hosting and
Ondemand solutions for business consultancy. It
is scouting for a partner for billing
solution.
Aspire is targeting small to medium size
software vendors who want to SaaS-enable their
products. “Our goal is to help them with a well
rounded offering. As of now, we offer technical
and GAAP analysis. However, we want to get
involved at a consultancy level. We are also
targeting corporate users to advise them on
their SaaS strategy,” said he.
He said that initial customers will be
captive centers of US companies who want to
outsource product development and build
competencies around them and those companies in
India who want to internationalize their
products i.e. change the way in which software
behaves in a foreign environment. “We are
building competencies to analyze code base.
There is also scope for engineering analysis to
implement and test the products.”
Aspire is setting up small dedicated teams
working towards specific competencies. The key
areas of focus would be supply chain and
industries with large data bases. The company
will invest about Rs 50 lakh plus an additional
investment in sales and marketing towards
developing future
competencies. |