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Contents 
Introduction
Gaining traction
Risking it all
Picking your cards
The key that fits
Case study: WebCentral |
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Frost & Sullivan analyst Foad Fadaghi has been studying hosted applications in the Australian market.
He expects a considerable rise in interest in the model, and expects this to grow further. "We believe the Australian hosted CRM market (software companies providing a hosted model of the software) was worth AU$6.5 million in 2004, and considering how long this model has been around, this is quite exceptional growth," Fodaghi says.
| "Outsourcing one application is not going to do much good for a company." -- Kristian Steenstrup, Gartner |
"You find it is those businesses that are less concerned about security issues, require the different pricing options... and have less in-house skills needed to manage certain applications that will outsource to a third party."
But Gartner analyst Kristian Steenstrup says that he believes those taking up the hosting of licensed products are part of a small minority in Australia, despite the attention this offering has been receiving. He says the Australian reception to hosted applications as a whole, despite their rise, has been luke-warm.
"There are plenty of companies that are not predisposed to hosted, or some form of hosting or outsourcing responsibilities -- they want to retain the ownership of that process," he says.
"Outsourcing one application is probably not going to do much good for a company. It is when you outsource virtually everything that you see the decrease in IT cost.
For small businesses with limited capabilities it can be a differentiating factor though, especially where complex requirements are hosted out. But you have to remember that, in the end, hosting is just another way of buying software that comes with a whole new range of concerns."
And the big market players have started to take this onboard. Siebel and Netsuite are hosting some of their software products with Telstra, and Optus has launched its own Online Office suite.
16%
7%
