How Big Is SaaS In IT Management Software?

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is disrupting the IT management software market. Incumbent software vendors are setting up new business units and adding SaaS offerings to existing portfolios; managed service providers are repositioning their offerings to leverage the trend; and new pure-play SaaS operators are extending their success by taking advantage of product churn in various established vendors' service and asset management customer bases. Forrester has developed a market forecast model for IT management SaaS that shows that SaaS will grow from making up just over 1% of the $18 billion IT management software market in 2008 to 10% by 2013, by which time many of the brand SaaS providers could be well established. Strategy professionals at IT management software vendors should therefore be planning now to compete in this segment in the medium term. Long term, the more general trend toward SaaS will reduce the total IT management software market by cutting the number of enterprise environments to be managed.