IBM e-Business Hosting Services general manager Jim Corgel says application hosting is poised to grow rapidly in the enterprise market, a view shared by IBM CEO Sam Palmisano in the company's annual report. Palmisano wrote that application hosting was one of the company's three or four most strategic areas; one that last year garnered $1 billion in revenues for IBM. Corgel says ISVs such as Siebel, which offers CRM OnDemand in conjunction with IBM, see an opportunity in software-as-a-service to provide even greater value to customers. The effort focuses around vertical industries, offering targeted solutions such as Demand Tech's consumer demand management software that allows retailers and manufacturers to optimise prices and inventory. Or accounting on demand from Intacct that provides CPA firms the scalability they need for their software, especially during crunch times like tax season. Another example of how hosted applications are changing business is Mobil Travel Guide, which uses something more of a subscription-based service that allows a three-person IT team running Linux on IBM's zSeries mainframe to deliver reliable services online. Mobil Travel Guide launched its online portal on The Today Show, and with its hosted IBM infrastructure was able to handle a spike in traffic 10 times the normal flow. Corgel says hosted applications benefit small- and medium-sized businesses especially. "The thing that drives me regarding SMBs is they keep telling us they want to do more on the Internet, to connect more with key partners, and do more applications, but they don't have the IT staff," he says. "With this hosting services opportunity, we think they can do all that." Copyright 2004 INFORMATION, INC. |
