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Dennis Howlett has the scoop on British Telecom's version of AppExchange (Salesforce.com's ecosystem for 3rd party developers). Last week, BT made a presentation to 200 software companies at Microsoft's UK HQ. BT's customer base includes 27 million consumers and 1.8 million small businesses; it wants to develop a marketing and distribution channel for 3rd party SaaS apps. It hinted that successful partners may find themselves acquired over time. (Last November Silicon.com noted that BT has a dedicated team of scouts who identify, evaluate and acquire hundreds of new technologies per year.)

BT cites an IDC survey that's summarized here by David Terrar. It showed that "the value of software is no longer determined by the functionality available, but by users' feelings and experience as they interact with the solution." Also, end users want predictable licensing and maintenance costs, and they prefer having their applications managed by someone else. IDC concludes that SaaS growth (20%/year) will far outpace software growth (6%). (In a 2005 report, IDC estimated that the web hosting market will grow by 16%/year through 2010.)

More hereDennis Howlett has the scoop on British Telecom's version of AppExchange (Salesforce.com's ecosystem for 3rd party developers). Last week, BT made a presentation to 200 software companies at Microsoft's UK HQ. BT's customer base includes 27 million consumers and 1.8 million small businesses; it wants to develop a marketing and distribution channel for 3rd party SaaS apps. It hinted that successful partners may find themselves acquired over time. (Last November Silicon.com noted that BT has a dedicated team of scouts who identify, evaluate and acquire hundreds of new technologies per year.)

BT cites an IDC survey that's summarized here by David Terrar. It showed that "the value of software is no longer determined by the functionality available, but by users' feelings and experience as they interact with the solution." Also, end users want predictable licensing and maintenance costs, and they prefer having their applications managed by someone else. IDC concludes that SaaS growth (20%/year) will far outpace software growth (6%). (In a 2005 report, IDC estimated that the web hosting market will grow by 16%/year through 2010.)

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