The new SaaS offerings from CA’s On Demand business unit are CA Clarity PP, CA GRC Manager and CA Instant Recovery. Currently, about 1,000 customers worldwide use CA’s SaaS and hosted solutions to improve the economics of their IT spend.
SaaS, also known as software on demand, is a model in which software is developed, hosted and operated for use over the Internet. Customers do not own the software itself, but rather, pay to use it.
Announcing the launch at CA World 2008, a conference hosted by the company for its customers and partners every 18 months, Jules Ehrlich, senior vice president and GM of CA’s On Demand business unit, said: “SaaS spend is growing four times faster than all other applications spend, according to the latest IDC 2008 report. And we expect to do business to the tune of $100 million in the first year and $250 million in the second year from our SaaS solutions.” CA has a dedicated business unit focused on SaaS which started off by introducing Clarity PPM On Demand in April this year. “Our SaaS offerings will allow customers to buy once and buy best, with solutions such as Clarity PPM costing as low as $18 per user, per month. Whether a customer`s business requirements are early stage or mature, they will find it simple to access, precisely the application functionality they need, with a compelling SaaS pricing model. While these three new offerings will be available immediately in the US and in Germany, we are committed to rolling it out across the CA portfolio of products along with newer solutions to all our customers globally,” Ehrlich said.
When can Indian enterprises, particularly SMBs, access these offerings? Rajendra Dhavale, director of Technical Sales in CA India & SAARC, said: “We would introduce Clarity PPM On Demand first. The solution should start seeing adoption in India in the next 9-12 month time frame.” Elaborating, he said Clari ty PPM is a SaaS version of CA`s Project and Portfolio Management software that has over 900 customers globally. It is used for enterprise-wide governance of IT expenses, staffing, investments and projects.
For instance, the Chicago Dept of Public Health uses the solution to help manage their $165 million annual grants, and has dramatically reduced the loss of approximately $10 million per year in funds incurred in their manual tracking process.
“Since most enterprises in India still prefer to manually monitor risk and compliance related work, the SaaS version of GRC (Governance, Risk, Compliance) Manager will not see much adoption here. And it remains to be seen how the SaaS version of Instant Recovery will fare,” averred Dhavale.
While analysts believe that SaaS is a great model for SMBs in India, CA evidently is adopting a “wait and watch” policy to see just how much demand and buzz the new offerings will create in one of their most exciting markets — India.
