Are we behind the curve in the UK?

Just having returned from a conference in the USA, I was once again surprised by the differences in the US and Europe hosting markets. There is no question that the sectors are facing the same challenges on both sides of the pond, issues such as Data Centre availability, mainly because of power restraints, the advance of the jumbo players in the market such as Google and Microsoft and the varying rates of adoption of Managed Services, by businesses, large and small. What puzzled me more is that is that there seems to be so much more innovation coming out of the US in terms of onlining the applications that currently sit on-premise, on the desktop. Is this is because the US investment money is chasing the “hosted” business model once again or the College system is churning out young guns with great ideas and execution skills? This is the first college year that the graduates have the internet all the way through school and college. The message from the analysts was loud and clear that the revolution is here and the time frame within 12 to 18 months to see a step change in the way businesses consume technology. For a Manages Service Provider in the UK, who has over 4000 business customers taking varying degrees of technology from us, it does not feel that way. Consult, buy and build still seems the norm for most businesses, although whenever I talk to customers this business model rarely delivers the results expected and it seems that they feel it is the IT consultants that benefit the most. Out of that comes the most important point for all Managed Service Companies, for at least the 12 months, the real competitor is not Google or Microsoft, or any of the new innovative solutions that we are all developing but the traditional on-premise solution of consult, buy and build. As a business dedicated to IT as a Managed Services are we alone in the UK or is anyone else looking forward to the "revolution"

Mark

Comments

[James H]

I think this is a good assessment Mark. Personally I've been a convert to the ASP/Software as a Service model since marketing broadband add-on services for NTL back in the last dotcom boom. This was not dissimilar to what your partners BT are doing with their Workspace http://www.bt.com/workspace and Tradespace http://www.bttradespace.com/freetojoin/ services but were definitely ideas before their time.

The company I work for now was one of the first in Europe to launch a fully featured hosted content management system but to be honest it is the company's mid-market 'on-premise' solution Immediacy - http://www.immediacy.net that has had its most successful year yet so I guess this reflects your comments that the UK is behind the curve in terms of SaaS adoption beyond the obvious business applications like CRM.

Once again though it appears that bubbles are about to burst but I think that economic uncertainties could well move in favour of Managed Services Providers like Cobweb and could also prove to be the tipping point for more rapid SaaS adoption in the UK.

[James H]

Interesting link that reinforces these observations...

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=3151D0A8-6527-4858-98BB-4DB88EF6FD9F

[James H]

And another on growing Data Centre challenges you mention...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/04/gartner_2011_significant_disruptions/

[Mark Adams]

James
We are starting to look at how Sun's Project Blackbox might disrupt this market - see http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/index.jsp
Mark

[James H]

Fascinating and innovative development. Thanks for sharing that Mark.

[James H]

Fascinating and innovative development. Thanks for sharing that Mark.