Progress takes SaaS to more than 400 applications

Progress Software has announced that its industry-leading software as a service (SaaS) empowerment programmes have successfully transformed Progress Application Partners (APs) to deliver over 400 on-demand applications based on Progress technology.

In addition, in the first quarter of this year, more than 70 additional APs participated in the empowerment programmes where Progress not only helps them in meeting the technical requirements of best-in-class on-demand applications, but also helps with the whole business transformation required to enable this new delivery model.

The growing popularity of on-demand applications has been driven by the flexibility they provide to budget- and resource-constrained IT departments, allowing them to use technologies their organisations need, but could not afford to deploy in the past.

Unlike other SaaS programmes that focus on just hosting, Progress offers a much more comprehensive approach to ensure APs not only adopt SaaS, but also deploy SaaS profitably.

The programme includes:

* Assessment
* Business planning
* Technical planning

Together, they help guide APs through every step of the process. Using a proven application transformation approach in conjunction with consulting services, Progress provides the knowledge, support and resources needed for transforming business applications using SOA (services-oriented architecture) and multi-tenancy reference models.

Brad Shimmin, principal analyst, application infrastructure, at Current Analysis, says: "Leveraging its strong partner ecosystem and suite of complementary best-in-class solutions, Progress has started to take advantage of the emerging SaaS space, targeting vertical-specific solutions with key partners."

With over 2 000 application partners delivering 5 000 vertically focused systems that cover everything from processing insurance claims to renting cars, Progress understands that SaaS is not suited for every market and works with its APs to determine whether SaaS is a fit for their business.

The company helps partners determine:

* Whether they should offer their applications as an on-demand service;
* How to target a new market opportunity for their services; and
* Whether their application is architected properly to support this service-oriented approach to business,

Progress is the only infrastructure software company that places a priority on the added step of understanding its partners' business model, in order to help evaluate the impact of this new delivery type on their business.

"In South Africa, we have embraced the SaaS model ahead of the rest of the world," reports Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software South Africa. "More than a quarter of our partners have transformed their business by committing to SaaS. In addition, they have been able to help their clients transform their businesses, acquired new clients which would have been otherwise closed to them, and made a major contribution to Progress's continued revenue and licence growth in this region.

"In this regard, Auto-Mate, MIP Holdings and Agri IT have led the way, pioneering SaaS in southern Africa and growing their businesses accordingly."

In the US, partners such as Keystone Systems, a leading provider of software and services for libraries with distinctive needs, has taken advantage of the programme. Libraries such as the State Library of Kansas and the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped are already using this model to help better serve their patrons with Keystone technology.

"Keystone is committed to providing state-of-the-art library systems that are not only accessible to those with special needs, but that are also very affordable," says Kay Holloman, CEO of Keystone Systems. "To accomplish this goal, we realised the SaaS model would give us the flexibility we needed, and working together with Progress, we determined how we could best deliver our application in this new model."

Progress also provides a powerful application infrastructure that includes Progress OpenEdge, the first integrated platform optimised for the development and deployment of service-oriented business applications, and Progress's Sonic enterprise service bus (ESB), the industry-leading integration backbone for distributed environments.

Applications built on the OpenEdge platform are portable, reliable and scalable, yet require fewer administrative resources than other deployment platforms. The addition of Sonic provides the seamless integration layer needed for today's federated, heterogeneous settings.