Just a bit of advance warning for those interested in an enterprise perspective on ICT outsourcing. March 26/27 2008 sees the ICT Outsourcing Summit take place at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland. My presentation on day two is titled “The Place of Software as a Service (SaaS) Within An Enterprise” and the programme introduction has this to say;
The business case for SaaS has stacked up successfully within an SME environment, but how will it fare for larger enterprises? The SaaS model itself will inherently require an ongoing outsourcing type relationship between the application vendor and the enterprise’s business unit or the central IT department itself. However within an enterprise environment there are more concerns over relinquishing control, scale and security issues that may arise with adopting SaaS. This session will explore the potential success of using SaaS, via an outsourcing model, within an enterprise environment.
• Is outsourcing applications via the SaaS model any different
from outsourcing other ICT processes?
• What are the issues and challenges with using SaaS in an
enterprise environment?
• How will SaaS fi t within the enterprise architecture of
applications?
• Governance issues – Will IT lose control if there is massive
adoption of SaaS applications by business units?
Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 
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