An article from InformationWeek examines the virtual appliances market, an idea promoted by virtualization pioneer VMware. The article points out that virtual appliances are software bundles that contain many server-like functions without any hardware, and then an application and operating system are set up to run inside the appliance.
The virtual appliance idea targets many of the same customers as SaaS, and the article points out that some companies may prefer the virtual appliance route since it would keep data in-house. Big vendors are starting to sell software to run in a VMware environment and VMware is boasting more than 2,500 virtual appliance downloads per day. But will these appliances rival SaaS? Time will tell.
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