Phil Wainewright of ZDNet recently posted a blog entry entitled, “Eight reasons SaaS will surge in 2008.” One of his reasons addresses the embracing of SaaS within the IT department…

Enterprise IT embraces SaaS. Here’s an interesting take from Microsoft SaaS architecture expert Gianpaolo Carraro: “Similarly to what happened about 10-12 years ago where the growth of the Intra-net was faster than the Inter-net (certainly in terms of $ if not in global terms), in 2008 SaaS … will grow faster inside the corporate boundaries than outside.” Of course, it’s in Microsoft’s interests to see enterprises deploying SaaS internally (and thus having to buy more server licenses to do so) than it is to have them consuming SaaS externally (especially when the external SaaS vendors are typically running Unix-based data centers and using open source platforms). In my view there will also be a lot of the latter going on, because contrary to popular opinion, many IT folk like the low-cost, low-maintenance, low-resource profile of externally delivered SaaS applications. But if others want to try deploying their own SaaS applications internally, I’m not going to stand in their way. It’ll be a great learning experience for them and for the platform vendors they work with.

We’ve seen similar trends in feedback from our IT users when we ask them why they like our service as a help desk solution. Their comments tend to focus on satisfaction with ease of use and how quickly they can experience value with the solution (related to Phil's point on how IT people like the low-cost, low-maintenance, low-resource profile of externally delivered SaaS applications).

An important by-product of IT departments using SaaS solutions is that they not only become less of a barrier for other departments’ use of SaaS applications but they can also become a promoter of SaaS within a company. We have already seen this. There have been a few occasions when IT users, who are using our service as a help desk solution, have recommended their Customer Support department to use Helpstream for customer support as well.