Survey says platform-as-a-service can save $20.5 billion in IT

What: A MeriTalk report titled “PaaS or Play? Cloud’s Next Move,” underwritten by Red Hat Inc.

Why: The government spends more than $80 billion on IT every year, but close to three-quarters of it is spent maintaining outdated legacy systems.  

The MeriTalk study, released Nov. 20, surveyed 153 federal IT professionals – 75 percent from civilian agencies and 25 percent from defense and intelligence agencies – and found feds believe platform-as-a-service has the potential to cut federal IT costs by $20.5 billion annually by speeding up software development.

The study suggests that current software development processes are slow and expensive, with software application development cycles average 3.5 years. Feds believe platform-as-a-service offerings can reduce that lag time by 31 percent, resulting in hugely more efficient development at cheaper costs.

Verbatim:       

• 92 percent of feds say PaaS offers vital support for cloud computing
• 90 percent say it offers support for data center consolidation
• 92 percent of feds say PaaS offers vital support for cloud computing
• 79 percent of feds believe using PaaS will help their agency take advantage of shared services
• 77 percent say new application development is vital to their agency’s ability to meet mission objectives
• 73 percent of feds believe using PaaS will help their agency take advantage of Big Data
• 69 percent of feds believe using PaaS will help them take advantage of mobile  computing
• 42 percent of feds believe a PaaS transition will improve security
• 50 percent of feds feel they are missing out because they are “locked in” to current technology contracts
• Feds estimate 41 percent of their agency’s software applications need refreshment or replacement