SaaS Vendors Target Enterprises Using Private Clouds

In spite
of the cost advantages offered by SaaS, enterprise customers are still reluctant
to embrace this technology. Security and privacy are touted as biggest reasons
for such a reluctance. Enterprises gets edgy as soon as we talk about stuff
outside of their firewall. This lack of trust also shows up in the
infrastructure space and some companies have adopted private clouds as a short
term solution. Private clouds gives them a chance to have Cloud like
architecture inside of their firewall. Slowly SaaS vendors are also taking steps
to deliver the software as a service inside the enterprise firewall. Enterprises
are warming up to this trend because it helps them cut costs while still keeping
the critical data inside of their firewall.

Longjump, a PaaS
provider, announced on Tuesday that their Longjump Business Applications
Platform can now be licensed to be installed at the enterprise data centers or
by ISVs in their own choice of datacenters. Their platform is available in three
deployment configurations fitting the needs of variety of businesses.

• Multi-Tenant – Suitable for large scale enterprises who want to host the
  software and data of different business units/departments
• Single-Tenant – Ideal for enterprises wanting to host SaaS applications
  inside their firewall
• On-Demand – Suitable for small businesses who don’t want to invest huge
  amounts on infrastructure

Enterprises will love such an option because it gives them an opportunity to
cut costs drastically in the current economic climate and, also, offers them the
same privacy and security comfort level from their on-premise mindset. This will
also help them deal with regulatory and compliance issues without much
trouble.

Let us be very clear here. It is going to take some time before enterprises
get comfortable with SaaS in its current form. Instead of trying to convince
enterprise customers to take a giant leap of faith, SaaS vendors can offer
options to install SaaS applications inside the enterprise firewall, either in the form of
an appliance or as an installable package. This will help enterprises embrace SaaS
in their workflow and, eventually, be comfortable with the idea of public cloud
or SaaS delivered from outside the firewall.

What do you think? Does it make sense to take this approach or it is a
pointless exercise without any substantial advantage. Feel free to add your
comments on this topic.