In fact, midsize and smaller companies are getting increased attention from software vendors that are adopting SaaS as a delivery model. Progress Software, for example, helps ISVs that serve vertical markets, such as health care, insurance and transportation, re-architect their software to offer it as a service. The company says SaaS is helping these ISVs reach new customers.
Even vendors outside the SaaS arena are looking to get in the game by integrating with SaaS applications. IP telephony vendor ShoreTel, for instance, recently launched an application that lets Salesforce.com users make calls by clicking on a customer name or icon, boosting the number of calls a sales rep can make.
As SaaS establishes itself as a valid option for application delivery, IT must address the data protection and compliance issues it raises. This is particularly true for SaaS applications, such as ERP, that deal with corporate financial information, salaries and HR records, and health care, which may include patient records and personally identifiable information.
Carefully vet SaaS deployments to ensure that sensitive information residing in databases outside of IT's control are properly secured by the provider, especially for multitenancy situations in which data from multiple SaaS customers resides on the same server. Consider encrypting data at rest and ensure that issues such as database access controls and auditing will satisfy internal and external privacy compliance policies.
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