Worldwide Automated Software Quality Software as a Service and Testing as a Service 2009-2013 Forecast and 2008 Vendor Shares: Services Delivery Model Drives Adoption?

This IDC study discusses the software as a service (SaaS) for automated software quality (ASQ) and emerging testing as a service (TaaS) competitive market forecast, which experienced high double-digit growth of 38.4% in 2007 on a very small base that was cut back only slightly to 35.1% in 2008. Despite what has been a struggling economy, the SaaS ASQ and emerging TaaS market is slated for a very strong overall trajectory of growth over the forecast period. This growth results from a variety of factors that came together additively. These include resource constraints and complex sourcing for application development projects, regulatory compliance, increased complexity of emerging development paradigms, and software-as-a-service licensing. IDC expects a huge CAGR (on low initial base revenue) for 2008-2013 of 33.6% resulting in a 2013 revenue of $736.4 million. At the same time, vendors must address user concerns about reliability, scalability, performance, and SLA management as cloud and TaaS offerings emerge.

"In the face of a chaotic global economy, constrained IT staffing, and complex sourcing, demand will emerge strongly for SaaS ASQ and TaaS solutions throughout our forecast period, driven by customer demand for innovative delivery models for quality and offerings from both innovative, small third-party providers and larger vendors," says Melinda Ballou, program director for Application Life-Cycle Management at IDC. "In a challenging economy, financial constraints, global competitive markets, and innovation are driving higher comfort levels with SaaS approaches for testing. These enable rapid access to both quality solutions and support infrastructure to sustain complex software sourcing and distributed development environments. SaaS and TaaS require fewer resources and de-capitalized expenditures and low initial cost as compared with on-premise ASQ solutions and facilitate faster quality approaches. Smaller vendors will continue to play a role for market innovation, as we see from emerging SaaS and early 'cloud' testing solutions already with TaaS. We expect ongoing acquisitions in this space, particularly in the 2010-2012 time frame."