Software-as-a-service targets the enterprise

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Take the example of ABS-CBN, a broadcast and multimedia company based in the Philippines, but with autonomous business divisions in the UK, US, Middle East and mainland Europe. The company not only deals with things like the acquisition of content but also the retail of goods and services such as pre-recorded media and even phone cards to Philipino ex-pats.

It has opted to deploy the normal NetSuite application to its business units, using OneWorld to handle the consolidation of information for a global view, but without taking away autonomy from the local international businesses.

"We are an SAP user, but we are using NetSuite to support the local country businesses, while still having global control and view over the operations," said Genemar Simpao, chief information officer of ABS-CBN.

The company has deployed the NetSuite SaaS product alongside its SAP deployment in Australia, with a view to rolling it out in Europe, followed by Canada, the Middle East, then the US.

"Europe is the most complex region for us to deploy in, given the differences between local markets in each European state, but doing so should simplify the view of the business," added Simpao.

For software-as-a-service to continue to thrive in large enterprise environments, and to sit alongside or indeed compete with established enterprise software names, vendors need to continue their work to scale their products. They must serve tens or hundreds of thousands of users, and allow them to work within a global business segmented by geographical, economic and industry boundaries.

But they must still remain part of a larger single corporate entity. Companies such a SAP, Oracle, even Microsoft can offer this. Looking at the current crop of successful SaaS providers, the opportunity lies in offering the same functionality, but making it easier to use and deploy, and cutting cost of integration.

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