Platform as a Service (PaaS) Market Analysis

Market Overview

Platform as a service or also referred to as an application platform as a service is a category of cloud computing services. In PaaS customers are provided with a computing platform and various solutions or tools to develop applications. PaaS helps in the development of applications or services without the complexity of provisioning hosting capabilities and the cost of managing and buying the underlying software and hardware. Thus, PaaS provides low initial cost, resource sharing, the incremental cost with growth in your service usage, management services, automated deployment, reuse, and life-cycle management.

The global platform as a service (PaaS) market is estimated to account for US$ 48,229.4 Mn in terms of value by the end of 2027.

Market Dynamics- Drivers

1. Rising demand for flexibility, scalability, and agility is expected to drive growth of the global platform as a service (PaaS) market during the forecast period

Developing, running, and deployment of on premise applications is complex, expensive, and slow. All these applications require hardware, middleware, database, web services, operating system (OS), and other software. Furthermore, a team of database, system, and network management experts are also required to keep everything functioning. Any change in business would require a change in the application, thereby setting off another lengthy cycle of development, tests, and deployment. PaaS provides the entire infrastructure over the Internet, required to develop, test, run, and deploy applications. The users can access custom applications built in the cloud, while independent software vendors (ISVs) and IT departments can now focus on innovation rather than on dealing with complex infrastructure. Thus, by leveraging PaaS, the organizations can now re-direct a major share of their budgets in creating applications and focusing on application expertise which provides high business value, instead of managing complex software and hardware infrastructures. Hence, these factors are expected to drive growth of the global platform as a service (PaaS) market during the forecast period.

2. Availability of pay-per-use features and high efficiency are expected to propel the global platform as a service (PaaS) market growth over the forecast period

PaaS offers subscribers pay-per-use features wherein the user is required to pay a subscription fee, depending upon the business requirements. This is highly beneficial since the subscribers can use the platforms to develop, run, test, and deploy the applications as well as scale the number of users of the application as per requirement. Therefore, PaaS simplifies application development management, deployment, and scaling, thereby facilitating higher developer productivity and innovation. Moreover, PaaS also provides a self-service, flexible and agile utility model which permits the uploading of compiled code in .NET or J2EE framework, and instantly deploys and runs standard- as well as custom-built applications. This lengthy process can now be completed faster, rather than consuming weeks/months. Hence, these factors are expected to propel the global platform as a service (PaaS) market growth over the forecast period.

Statistics:

North America held dominant position in the global platform as a service (PaaS) market in 2019, accounting for 58.4% share in terms of value, followed by APAC and Europe respectively.

Figure 1: Global Platform as a Service (PaaS) Market Share (%), in terms of Value, By Region, 2019

Market Dynamics- Restraints

1. High fragmentation of the market is expected to hamper the global platform as a service (PaaS) market growth over the forecast period

The global platform as a service (PaaS) market is highly fragmented, owing to the presence of various vendors that provide individual PaaS functionalities such as MFT, DBMSs, messaging, application servers, data integration, BPM technology, and B2B integration. This level of fragmentation is highly unfeasible to deal with when service providers and users begin to execute business-critical large-scale applications. These applications would be requiring the simultaneous and joint usage of multiple PaaS capabilities such as user experience, DBMSs, application servers, messaging, and security. Therefore, these factors are expected to hamper the global platform as a service (PaaS) market growth in the near future.

2. Lack of awareness leading to low adoption by SMEs is expected to hinder growth of the global platform as a service (PaaS) market during the forecast period

The process of building, testing, and deployment of business applications has changed significantly, owing to the introduction of cloud computing. PaaS has emerged as a verified solution for building, running, and testing applications without the hassle of maintaining the software and hardware infrastructure within the company. However, lack of awareness regarding security and data handling concerns relating to PaaS solutions among enterprises is a major restraining factor. This is typically prevalent in small and medium enterprises that are hesitant to adopt and integrate PaaS solutions within their organizations. SMEs are hesitant to dedicate their trust to cloud solutions, as they feel that the solutions do not comply with the data regulation policies and standards in place currently. Therefore, these factors are expected to hinder growth of the platform as a service (PaaS) market during the forecast period.

Market Opportunities

1. Combined use of IaaS with PaaScan present lucrative growth opportunities in the global platform as a service (PaaS) market

Google and Microsoft, both among the leading PaaS providers have moved down the value chain to create and provide IaaS offerings. IaaS is required to bring in a higher degree of acceptance while creating a broader cloud footprint. Currently, PaaS adoption is at a nascent stage, and a number of SMEs are unwilling to bet on it for the long term. Thus, it is pushing PaaS providers to offer IaaS solutions to customers/clients. A number of PaaS providers prefer programming languages such as Java, .Net, Ruby, and Python. The notion that PaaS solutions work best with native or preferred language has bound the clients to a particular platform offering. However, in order to scale their businesses as well as cater to a larger set of application developers, the providers have begun to support and accept multiple programming technologies.

2. Increasing demand BPaaS and open PaaS can provide major business opportunities in the global platform as a service (PaaS) market

BPaaS is even higher up the abstraction chain in comparison to SaaS. Major BPO outsourcing providers such as China, India, and Latin America are expected to play a major role and capitalize on this sector. BPaaS can be advantageous to SMEs as well as large enterprises as it delivers huge profits. BPaaS is independent of the contract duration and it provides more than 35% - 40% savings for small enterprises, around 25% - 30% savings for medium enterprises, and about 10% savings to large enterprises, when compared to IT+BPO services. Open PaaS aims at developing a PaaS technology for enterprise collaborative applications that are deployed on hybrid cloud models. Open PaaS facilitates the designing, testing, and deployment of apps based on verified technologies. The vendors provide the customers with those services (collaborative messaging system, workflow, and integration technologies) which further require cloud computing.

Figure 2: Global Platform as a Service (PaaS) Market Value (US$ Mn), 2017 - 2027

The global platform as a service (PaaS) market was valued at US$ 6,353.0 Mn in 2019 and is forecast to reach a value of US$ 48,229.4 Mn by 2027 at a CAGR of 28.8% between 2020 and 2027.

Market Trends

1. Paas helping organizations to improve governance

Pass, along with improving productivity, is helping organizations to adopt best governance practices. Furthermore, incorporating test automation, software best practices, integration, and fault tracking, has led to improved governance, thereby enhancing the quality of software being developed. Moreover, PaaS helps developers alleviate the complexity of developing applications, thereby leading to rapid experimentation and innovation, thus, influencing rising consumption of IT services and infrastructure globally.

2. Strategically updated versions of PaaS to evolve

The market leaders are expected to come up with the strategic versions of PaaS over the forecast years. PaaS is analyzed to expand and evolve in the cloud environment offering support for application development in several languages, simpler administrative management, and seamless integration into applications. As with other cloud deployment models, the private cloud model is frequently adopted for risk-free and secure operation. A similar trend is expected to bolster the adoption of private PaaS model. Thus, the combination of increased trust towards the cloud by enterprises coupled with simpler execution of PaaS solutions is expected to make the adoption PaaS very viable over the forecast period.

Value Chain Analysis

The figure above showcases the value chain for PaaS solutions. The proposed architecture is split into both horizontal and vertical layers. The vertical layers represent differentiation between infrastructure management components, IaaS, and pure PaaS components, which rely on IaaS components. The horizontal layers perform the differentiation. In these, PaaS components are differentiated by:

aPaaS: (Cloud-enabled Application Platform) The platform for hosting and managing individual application services and data.

iPaaS: The platform for integration and intermediation of the application services hosted and point-managed by aPaaS.

Global Platform as a Service (PaaS) Market - Impact of Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, many industries witnessed significant shift in their business. There is significant impact on platform as a service (PaaS) market, as most of the countries have announced lockdown and many industries are rapidly closing their business to reduce the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the health care sector need more secure and scalable cloud infrastructure in order to maintain proper patient information with high speed and flexibility. During the pandemic, there is high need for the advanced technologies such as cloud computing, big data analytics for the analysis of patient data. Nowadays, all the private doctors and healthcare institutions are providing online consultation services amidst country lockdown. This has increased the demand for cloud based advanced services in order to improve efficiency and employee productivity. Due to increase in the healthcare record the demand for more secure cloud solution is also increased, which has positively impacted the platform as a service (PaaS) market.

Competitive Section

Key players operating in the global platform as a service (PaaS) market are ActiveState Software Inc., AT&T Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., VMware Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Software AG, Google, Inc., EMC Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, SAP SE, IBM Corporation, Red Hat, Inc., and Oracle Corporation.

Key Developments

1. Key companies are focused on partnership and collaboration, in order to enhance the market presence. For instance, in July 2019, AT&T Inc. collaborated with Microsoft Corporation to deliver innovation with cloud, 5G, and AI.
2. Major companies are involved in partnerships and collaborations, in order to gain a competitive edge in the market. For instance, in November 2019, Salesforce.com, Inc. partnered Microsoft Corporation to help customers meet evolving business requirements.