SaaS Spells Relief For Small Business

By John Magee, VP of Symantec Corporation

As small businesses feel the pressure to survive in the current state of the economy, relief is emerging in the form of software-as-a-service, or SaaS. For small businesses in particular, the introduction of a growing range of SaaS solutions could not have arrived at a better time. SaaS is delivered through an online service that offers a low maintenance, cost-effective alternative to onpremises solutions. What's more, SaaS solutions are now more secure and easier than ever to integrate into an existing infrastructure.

With an expanding range of viable SaaS solutions now available, small businesses need to evaluate the most appropriate service for their environment by considering the cost, complexity, flexibility, and integration issues associated with today's online services.

Where to Begin?
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of SaaS implementation is simply deciding which application is most appropriate to outsource. In the past, SaaS offerings were limited to applications such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and the like. Now, however, companies are also looking at online infrastructure services—applications such as backup and storage that protect and store mission critical data.

Online backup is one such service. It can help small businesses deal with a challenge shared by their large enterprise counterparts: exponentially growing data volumes. Never before have businesses had so much electronic information to store, manage, and protect. In fact, a March 2007 report by IDC Research found that external disk storage capacity will increase by 50 percent annually on average through 2011 and will require a corresponding data protection capacity.