Abstract
Report Focus
This report presents the results of a detailed research program into preferences and plans for hosted, SaaS and managed messaging capabilities among North American organizations over the period 2008-2011. It focuses on various types of outsourced messaging capabilities, including complete messaging services, messaging security services and archiving services, among others. The goal of this research and report is to provide vendors, investors and others interested in the hosted messaging market with actionable information that they can use to develop marketing plans and to more accurately focus their efforts on understanding and penetrating the market for hosted and managed services. Accompanying this document, and provided earlier to subscribers to the Osterman Research Subscription Service (ORSS) 2008 is the complete data set from the primary survey that was conducted for this report.
Key Findings and Trends Discussed in this Report
- Smaller organizations are still the sweet spot for hosted, SaaS and managed services: We found much greater penetration of hosted/SaaS services among smaller firms (up to 2,500 email users). For example, hosted/SaaS messaging was used by under five percent of smaller organizations' users in 2008, growing substantially by 2010. For larger firms, on the other hand, under four percent of users in these organizations are using hosted/SaaS messaging today, growing by more than 50% by 2010.
- Outsourced providers are able to solve many messaging problems: There is a significant opportunity for providers of various types of hosted, SaaS and managed services to directly address many of the problems in managing messaging systems and networks and to alleviate burdens for IT departments. While many decision makers will likely not be receptive to outsourcing their entire messaging infrastructure to a hosted, SaaS or managed service provider, by selecting key areas for outsourcing that present the most difficulty, IT departments can make their lives significantly easier.
- Outsourced providers can lower the cost of messaging: One of the important selling points used by providers of outsourced services is that they can significantly reduce the cost of messaging, particularly for smaller organizations. As a result, service providers must focus heavily on educating their prospects about the actual cost of providing messaging services internally if they hope to use cost savings from outsourcing as an effective sales message.
- Key decision criteria in selecting outsourced messaging security services: The ongoing cost of outsourced security solutions, as well as the ability to stop viruses in the wild and uptime/reliability are the most important decision criteria for messaging security services. Of least concern are attributes about the messaging security vendors themselves, including the size of the vendors and their image of industry leadership.
- SLAs are key to selling outsourced services: If a provider can guarantee at least 99.99% reliability - or no more than about four minutes of email downtime in any given month - then that vendor will have a much better chance of getting the attention of corporate decision makers. At only three nines of availability, the likelihood of winning business is halved. The bottom line is that the vast majority of decision makers view messaging service level agreements (SLAs) to be a critical part of any offering by a hosted or managed service provider.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
- Executive Summary
Chapter 2
- Background and Methodology
Chapter 3
- Current Messaging Practices and Problems
Chapter 4
- Trends in Messaging
Chapter 5
- Preferences for Delivery Models
Chapter 6
- Desired Features and Functions
Chapter 7
- Objections to Using Hosted/SaaS/Managed Services
Chapter 8
- Hosted/SaaS/Managed Services Purchasing Decisions
Chapter 9
- Future Trends in Hosted/SaaS/Managed Services
Chapter 10
- Hosted/SaaS/Managed Service Messaging Vendors
List of Figures
- North American Forecast of Outsourced Messaging Seats in Mid-Sized and Large Organizations, 2008-2011
- Proportion of Email Users by Delivery Mode
- Risk Posed by Various Communication Media
- Median Size of the Typical Mailbox, in Megabytes, 2008-2010
- Anticipated Problems With Spam Over the Next Two to Three Years
- Anticipated Problems With Malware Over the Next Two to Three Years
- “How closely do you track the total cost of your messaging system, including licenses, hardware depreciation, maintenance/support contracts, personnel, backups, etc?”
- Estimated Costs per Seat per Month to Provide Messaging Capabilities
- Views on Where Outbound Content Filtering Should be Performed
- Views on Where Inbound Content Filtering Should be Performed
- Views on Where Outbound Policy Enforcement Should be Performed
- Views on Where Inbound Policy Enforcement Should be Performed
- Preferred Modes for Those Who Must Often Send Confidential or Otherwise Sensitive Information
- Preferred Encryption Modes for Average/Occasional Users
- Likelihood of Evaluating Hosted Services That Would Supplement or Replace Internally Managed Solutions
- Needs for Various Capabilities
- Importance for Hosted/SaaS/Managed Messaging Security Providers to Use Multiple, Simultaneous Virus Scanners from Multiple Vendors
- Importance for Hosted / SaaS / Managed Messaging Security Providers to Provide Messaging Services and Messaging Security as Part of the Same Offering
- Desirability of Various Features Offered by a Hosted/SaaS Provider
- Likelihood of Deploying Hosted Messaging Services at Various Service Levels
- Importance of Messaging Security Providers Spooling Customers' Email
- Importance of Messaging SLAs Offered by Hosted/SaaS/Managed Service Providers
- Perceived Value in a Bundled Hosted Service Offering That Includes Email, Security and Archiving as an “All-in-One” Offering
- Reasons for Decision Makers Believing that Hosted Providers Offer a Lower Level of Security
- Perceptions About the Level of Security Offered by Hosted Providers vs. Internally Managed Systems
- Confidence in Key Aspects of Switching to a Hosted/SaaS/Managed Service Provider
- “In order for our organization even to consider outsourcing any messaging-related capabilities, the outsourced solution must:”
- Likelihood of Deploying Hosted/SaaS/Managed Email Services at Various Price Points
- Likelihood of Deploying Hosted/SaaS Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam Services at Various Price Points
- Likelihood of Deploying Hosted/SaaS Encrypted Messaging Services at Various Price Points
- Likelihood of Deploying Hosted/SaaS Messaging Archiving Services at Various Price Points
- Preferred Pricing Models for Hosted Messaging Archiving Services
- Types of Companies That Would Be Considered for Hosting Some or All Messaging Capabilities
- Agreement With Various Aspects of Hosted Services
- “What sort of effect has the entrance of Microsoft into this marketplace had on your company' s decision to entertain hosted messaging services?”
- Likelihood of Outsourcing Various Services if Providers Could Adequately Address All Concerns
- North American Forecast of Outsourced Messaging Seats in Mid-Sized and Large Organizations, 2008 and 2011
- Satisfaction With Current Hosted Providers
List of Tables
- Distribution of Users by Messaging Platform, 2008 and 2010
- Concern Over Various Messaging-Related Issues
- Difficulty of Managing Aspects of the IT Infrastructure
- Changes in Concerns About Various Issues, 2007 to 2008
- Importance of Various Attributes of Hosted/SaaS Messaging Security Services
- Importance of Various Attributes of Hosted/SaaS Messaging Archiving Services
- Issues With Which Messaging Decision-Makers Agree
- Reasons that Organizations Do Not Use Hosted/SaaS Email Services
- Reasons that Organizations Do Not Use Hosted/SaaS Messaging Security Services
- Reasons that Organizations Do Not Use Hosted/SaaS Messaging Archiving Services
- Importance of Reasons Cited to Use a Hosted/SaaS/Managed Service Provider
- Importance of Various Attributes of Hosted/SaaS Email Services
- Delivery Models for Various Messaging-Related Services
- Concern Over Various Messaging-Related Issues Over the Next Two to Three Years
- IT Management Concern Over Various Messaging-Related Issues Over the Next One to Three Years
- Importance of Various Attributes of a Hosted/SaaS/Managed Service Provider
- Likelihood of Considering Various Hosted Email Providers
- Likelihood of Considering Various Hosted/SaaS Messaging Security Service Providers
- Likelihood of Considering Various Hosted/SaaS Messaging Archiving Providers
- Selected North American Hosted Messaging Providers
