Appirio Secures $10 Million in Series C Funding
In an economy where many IT budgets are flat or declining, industry analysts believe cloud computing to be counter-cyclical. In fact, IDC recently increased its SaaS growth projection for 2009 from 36 percent growth to 40.5 percent growth over 2008, and predicts that cloud computing will increase 260 percent by 2010.
"The business case for cloud computing is strong, and we're seeing the pace of investment from investors and customers growing as a result," said Chris Barbin, CEO of Appirio. "The lower up-front costs, the ability to scale usage up or down and pay only for what you need, and the chance to remove depreciating hardware assets from the balance sheet are always attractive. In these conditions they are top of mind. GGV's investment and expertise can help us significantly advance our offerings and continue growing the company to meet the high demand we're seeing."
The economy may be down and jobs may be getting tougher and tougher to find but there is one thing that is going up and that's the cloud computing trend. SaaS providers and products are on the rise -- and for good reason.
There is a much lower cost of entry, lower annual costs (normally) and features and service levels that can only be provided by a company that can focus their efforts on one product (or line of products as is the case with Google).
Forrester and others have some great information on the TCO for this growing SaaS market. Have you checked it out yet for your organization? It could be a huge cost saver.
