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Business software as a service: demand for business applications from the cloud is growing

Frankfurt am Main, 4 August 2010 – Increasing numbers of companies are investigating cloud computing: A recent survey of 146 IT specialists by COMPUTERWOCHE has revealed that 85% of those questioned have started to get to grips with the subject. 42% are already working with data clouds or intend to do so. Cloud-based business applications in the form of software as a service are particularly in demand. Over 40% of those surveyed would like to obtain business solutions "from the cloud".

"The clincher for moving from traditional software to cloud solutions is cost efficiency. It allows companies to absorb peak loads more easily and – not least thanks to attractive licensing models – to respond more flexibly to developments on the market. Furthermore, it makes the acquisition and operation of additional hardware unnecessary," said Andreas Richter, Director of International Marketing at GROUP Business Software AG.

The trend towards cloud computing is becoming stronger by the day. Software suppliers in particular are being called upon to respond to this development and to offer their own solutions as software as a service (SaaS). With its cloud computing platform, GROUP Live (www.grouplive.com), GROUP Business Software AG has launched a solution on the market which efficiently supports software suppliers and which uses powerful mechanisms to simplify access to the cloud.

"Hosted under the strictest security standards in IBM's computer centre, software suppliers can rapidly develop their own SaaS-capable solutions thanks to the PaaS approach of our platform and offer them to their customers securely and reliably from the cloud," explains Andreas Richter. Besides the high level of flexibility and maximum economy offered by the platform, this was an important criterion for apinso gmbh. apinso specialises in business applications which user departments can activate and adapt themselves and is using the PaaS system from GROUP to operate its software-on-demand platform "appeleon online services" (www.appeleon.com).

"GROUP Live enables us to build on the philosophy of our appeleon platform 'just use IT' to offer our customers a wider range of products," explains Dirk Laufer, Managing Director at apinso gmbh. "With GROUP Live we can make even full copies of appeleon, as well as individual applications, available to our customers in the form of software as a service within just five minutes for use in a wide range of tasks," says Laufer, highlighting a key benefit of the flexible cloud computing platform. "At the same time, we offer our customers maximum flexibility with variable term contracts," he continues.