Information technologies develop very quickly. And in the same way should be changed the companie's attitude to them. But the question is whether this is actually happening. If the companies and their employees are able to adapt to new technologies as quickly as these technologies arise. One of the phenomena of recent years is delivering applications through Software As A Service (SaaS). This concept is closely linked with the issue of Cloud computing and its use can be solved by outsourcing corporate IT structure. So here we meet three very exposed concepts. But their terms are often used confused or in the wrong context. This work focuses on explaining these concepts in the context of business intelligence and analysis on the aspects that affect them. In particular, cloud computing is a modern concept, which everyone talks about but only few people know exactly what it means and what it could bring to a particular company. This work helps to answer these questions and it helps to sort out the context and framework within which the possible changes in the corporate IT infrastructure should be discussed to make decisions. The first part is focused on basic lighting of these concepts and their insertion into mutual context. The second part is then devoted to current trends in this area so that conclusions for a prediction of the expected development in the coming years can be drawn.

Information technology (IT) in the recent decades has showcased immense evolution. This evolution has impacted not only the technological sector of the society but also the socio-political and economic sectors. One such archetype that has gained popular momentum in the recent years is cloud computing. Still in its developmental stages, cloud computing is the latest offspring of computing services and has invariably challenged the traditional aspects of computing services across the IT Organizations in the world. Thus, adopted by a number of developed as well as developing countries, cloud computing has played a crucial role in decreasing the overall cost pertinent to hardware, software and other services in organizations. However, issues such as data security and confidentiality, data availability, legal issues and unintelligent Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have questioned the reliability and credibility of cloud computing. This has resulted in lack of potential investments from major companies. The main aim of this research is to provide concrete reasons for the actively implementing cloud computing in IT Organizations. Qualitative approach and exploratory design are extensively used for data collection and analysis. Primary data is collected based on the views and opinions of IT experts and secondary data is collected from literary sources which invariably supports the primary data and maintains the credibility of the research.

With advances in information technology, various cloud computing related research and development has become a hot trend. Except the vast amount of studies and reports appearing in local magazines and newspapers, government agencies have also set up corresponding R & D projects. However, most of these studies focus on the infrastructure or platform level of the cloud. For example, the projects for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) include the Cloud Computing Center for Mobile Application at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the Cloud Service and Technology Center at Information Industry Institute (III) and the already launched ¡§hiCloud¡¨ at Chunghwa Telecom Corporation. In the business side, there is TCloud Computing that does the development of both "Infrastructure" and "Platform as a Service" (PaaS). As to Software as a Service (SaaS) related research, III has gathered 10 domestic companies to participate the co-operation plans for education cloud, manufacture cloud, ¡K and practice cloud, a total of nine cloud services. However, they are all in the early stages without much success stories or usages. The study of this thesis is angled toward business needs, from the point of resource-based analysis to see how a firm will be affected if introduction of SaaS to business. In particular, we will study this subject from four dimensions, which are the competitiveness of enterprises, IT outsourcing strategy, cost structure analysis and data security technology, to identify the possible critical factors for the introduction for cloud computing services. As most people are perceived, cloud computing has a comparative advantage of cost saving over traditional approach.

隨著雲端運算的服務租用理念越來越受到重視，SaaS 服務供應商在提供服務的時候無不希望可以以最少的成本服務最多的客戶，於是吸引了許多的研究者投入精力以及時間，希望可以設計出讓租戶們共享資源又能夠有客製化空間的解決方案。服務供應商為了順利推廣多租戶軟體開發，其中一項關鍵技術是支援 SQL 語句自動轉換機制，目的是協助 SQL 語句轉換成以多租戶資料架構邏輯表達的 SQL 語句，讓租戶應用程式的軟體開發人員能夠專注在自身的應用程式開發。 開發 SQL 語句自動轉換機制，必須先選定資料庫的資料架構，本論文採用 Universal Table Layout 這個 SaaS 多租戶資料共享常見的資料架構。 我們參考知名 SaaS 廠商 Force.com 的 Universal Table Layout 資料架構，並提出一些修正。其次，我們應用關聯式代數抽象化來設計 SQL 語句的轉換規則，這些理論結果不僅在表達轉換機制上更具有一般性，並且讓轉換規則的理解也變得更加容易。我們以這些理論推導為基礎實現一個實驗的工具，最後透過幾個實驗，觀察及探討實驗數據所呈現的意義。

Kommunigate: 展示與銷售之可能方案 / The marketing automation tools that are primarily web-based are a rapidly growing sector today. The competition in web-based platform offering a presentation tool and a repository of marketing collaterals with analytics to track the sales performance is currently limited. Tapping into this opportunity, owners of ideakitchen, the parent company that is primarily a hybrid communication design and strategy firm based in India, is launching a new web-based product called Kommunigate to enable the sales process. Launching the new product, as part of an existing company will allow the startup to initiate its operations with several sunk costs that will reduce the initial investment required to launch the service. Synergies between the existing design and marketing strategy services and the new presentation and storing web application will allow each individual business to leverage costs and increase profits. The financial analysis, which includes the expansion plan, proves the project to be profitable and desirable under its assumptions, based on the initial investment scheme.

Företag använder marknadssegmentering för att dela in kunder i grupper utefter liknande karaktäristika, som exempelvis betalningsvilja. Företag kan i sinom tid möta en mättad marknad inom dess segment, och behöver då ompositionera strategier mot nya segment för fortsatt kundtillväxt. För företag som valt en positionering mot segment med hög betalningsvilja (high-end), är en möjlighet för fortsatt kundtillväxt istället ompositionering mot lägre segment (low-end). Syftet med studien var att kartlägga och identifiera hur företag besittande en högpristjänst, kan nå kunder med lägre betalningsvilja genom nedåtgående segmentering. Detta utan att skada varumärket och riskera förluster av befintliga kunder. Utifrån syftet fastslogs följande frågeställning: • Hur kan SaaS-företag som besitter en high-end tjänst, använda nedåtgående segmentering utan att skada varumärket och förlora befintliga kunder? Studiens avgränsning begränsades till SaaS-företag, en delbransch inom IT-branschen. Detta med anledning av dess unika, relativt obefintliga, marginalkostnad. Studien har genomförts genom att använda en kvalitativ forskningsmetodik, i form av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra företag ståendes inför det problem som berörs. Studien består genomgående av en struktur baserad på blocken segmentering, tillväxt, lönsamhet samt varumärke. Studiens resultat, baserad på insamlad empiri och analys, har lett till en slutsats som påvisat fyra stycken beståndsdelar. Dessa ter sig vara faktorer som en high-end tjänst bör inneha, för en lyckad strategiförändring mot lägre marknadssegment. Dessa fyra kriterier är marknadsmedvetenhet, skalbar tjänst, flerstegig prismodell samt varumärkesmedvetenhet. / Companies use market segmentation to divide customers into groups along similar characteristics, such as willingness to pay. Companies could eventually meet a saturated market within its segments, and would then need to reposition towards new segments for continued customer growth. For companies that choose to position themselves against segments with high willingness to pay (high-end), a possibility of continued customer growth is to position segments with lower willingness to pay (low- end). The purpose of this thesis was to plot and identify how companies, proprietors of a high-end solution, can use downward segmentation to reach customers with lower willingness to pay. This without damaging the brand and risking losses of existing customers. Based on the purpose of the thesis, the following research question has been established: • How can SaaS-companies that have a high-end service, use downward segmentation without damaging their brand and losing existing customers? The delimitation of the study was limited to SaaS companies, a sub-sector in the IT industry. This is due to its unique, relatively non-existent, marginal cost. The study has been conducted using a qualitative research method, in the form of five semi structured interviews with four companies facing the problem concerned. The study is continuously conducted through a structure based on segmentation, growth, profitability and brand. The results of the study, based on collected empirical data and the analysis, have led to a conclusion containing four specific components. These appear to be factors that a high-end service should hold for a successful strategy change towards lower market segments. These four criteria are market awareness, scalable service, multi-pricing model and brand awareness. This thesis is written in Swedish.

Context. Successful software product management concerns about developing right software products for right markets at the right time. The product manager, who carries responsibilities of planning, requires but does not always have access to high-quality information for making the best possible planning decisions. The following master thesis concentrates on proposing a solution that supports planning of a software product by means of analytics. Objectives. The aim of the master thesis is to understand potentials of analytics in product planning decisions in a SaaS context. This thesis focuses on SaaS based analytics used for portfolio management, product roadmapping, and release planning and specify how the analytics can be utilized for planning of a software product. Then the study devises an analytics-based method to enable software product planning. Methods. The current study was designed with a mixed methodology approach, which includes the literature review and survey researches as well as case study under the framework of the design science. Literature review was conducted to identify product planning decisions and the measurements that support them. A total of 17 interview based surveys were conducted to investigate the impact of analytics on product planning decisions in product roadmapping context. The result of the interviews ended in an analytics-based planning method provided under the framework of design science. The designed analytics-based method was validated by a case study in order to measure the effectiveness of the solution. Results. The identified product planning decisions were summarized and categorized into a taxonomy of decisions divided by portfolio management, roadmapping, and release planning. The identified SaaS-based measurements were categorized into six categories and made a taxonomy of measurements. The result of the survey illustrated that importance functions of the measurement- categories are not much different for planning-decisions. In the interviews 61.8% of interviewees selected “very important” for “Product”, 58.8% for “Feature”, and 64.7% for “Product healthiness” categories. For “Referral sources” category, 61.8% of responses have valuated as “not important”. Categories of “Technologies and Channels” and “Usage Pattern” have been rated majorly “important” by 47.1% and 32.4% of the corresponding responses. Also the results showed that product use, feature use, users of feature use, response time, product errors, and downtime are the first top measurement- attributes that a product manager prefers to use for product planning. Qualitative results identified “product specification, product maturity and goal” as the effected factors on analytics importance for product planning and in parallel specified strengths and weaknesses of analytical planning from product managers’ perspectives. Analytics-based product planning method was developed with eleven main process steps, using the measurements and measurement scores resulted from the interviews, and finally got validated in a case. The method can support all three assets of product planning (portfolio management, roadmapping, and release planning), however it was validated only for roadmapping decisions in the current study. SaaS-based analytics are enablers for the method, but there might be some other analytics that can assist to take planning decisions as well. Conclusion. The results of the interviews on the roadmapping decisions indicated that different planning decisions consider similar importance for measurement-categories to plan a software product. Statistics about feature use, product use, response time, users, error and downtime have been recognized as the most important measurements for planning. Analytics increase knowledge about product usability and functionality, and also can assist to improve problem handling and client-side technologies. But it has limitations regarding to receiving formed-based customer feedback, handling development technologies and also interpreting some measurements in practice. Immature products are not able to use analytics. To create, remove, or enhance a feature, the data trend provides a wide view of feature desirability in the current or even future time and clarifies how these changes can impact decision making. Prioritizing features can be performed for the features in the same context by comparing their measurement impacts. The analytics-based method covers both reactive and proactive planning.

The purpose of this thesis was to map and analyze how ITIL works together with SaaS in a specificproject at a company. This study has not only confirmed that ITIL and SaaS can work together, but hasalso produced recommendations for specific areas worth focusing on during implementation of thesetwo techniques. It’s worth mentioning that these recommendations have been produced from a veryspecific context and that customization of said technologies needs to be made to fit each organization.The results from this study implies that there might be a connection between the choice of developmentmethodology and how one chooses to deliver and maintain said product. This might be seen as trivialbut is highly relevant for new actors in the market, and something that should be mentioned in the officialITIL documentation. The same goes for customization of ITIL and SaaS. The results of this study mightlook different if the case study company had been using another development methodology.Earlier research made by Karkošková and Feuerlicht (2014) is confirmed, where one of their hypothesesis that there needs to be extra customization between the cloud (SaaS) and ITIL. They continue theirwork by successively adapt ITIL to SaaS from a consumer perspective. In their paper, they also mentionthe importance of beginning this adaption from the other end; the service provider perspective. Thisthesis begins said perspective, and not only starts to analyze, but also produce four recommendations onhow to proceed with the adaption of ITIL and SaaS. / Syftet med denna studie var att kartlägga och analysera hur ITIL fungerar tillsammans med SaaS i ettbefintligt uppdrag hos ett företag. Denna studie har inte bara bekräftat att ITIL och SaaS fungerartillsammans, den har även tagit fram rekommendationer för vad som tål att fokusera extra på under enimplementationsprocess när organisationen använder SaaS som sin leveransmetodik. Det bör docknämnas att dessa rekommendationer är utarbetade från ett väldigt specifikt fall, och att anpassa lösningarefter organisationerna alltid är och bör vara av hög prioritet.Studien antyder också att det finns ett samband mellan valet av utvecklingsmetodologi och hur mansedan ska leverera och hålla utvecklingen uppdaterad. Detta kan ses trivialt men är relevant för nyaaktörer på marknaden, något som bör antydas i ITIL:s dokumentation. Detsamma gäller anpassning avITIL och SaaS. Hade studiens resultat sett annorlunda ut om företaget istället använt en annanutvecklingsmetodik?Tidigare forskning av Karkošková och Feuerlicht (2014) bekräftas också, där en av deras hypoteser äratt det krävs extra anpassning mellan molnet och ITIL, varpå de börjar med att teoretiskt anpassa dessatvå begrepp, men endast från ett konsumentperspektiv. De nämner att steg två hade varit att anpassa frånett leverantörsperspektiv, och det är precis det som denna studie gör. Arbetet med att anpassa ITIL ochSaaS praktiskt är påbörjat och kan fortsätta att byggas upp av kommande studier. Denna studieproducerar även fyra rekommendationer till anpassningsarbetet.

The diploma thesis deals with the definition of transformation process of the "appropriate" application into Software as a Service (SaaS) distribution model. For this purpose, it describes the SaaS model and evaluates its pros and cons in four points of view -- developer, distributor, customer and user. Following parts of the model description are an estimation of the future evolution of the SaaS model, the introduction of application SaaS Platforms and the specification of appropriate application for the SaaS model. Next chapter deals with the specifications of the application distributed in the Software as a Service model. These specifications define all needed application properties that have to be implemented in the transformation process. These specifications are for example differentiation of customer data and administration access, configuration and customization, application and data security, business and pricing model, service level agreement etc. The last chapter deals with the formulation of the transformation process of the application into SaaS model. Individual activities of the process are closely described and demonstrated on the preparation of details for the transformation of the web-based application Audit Information Tracker into SaaS model.

This theses focuses on the possible legal protection of a computer program as well as on the legal nature of computer program as an intangible asset. Both copyright protection (as a standard and worldwide accepted means of protection) and also the other possibilities, i.e. patent protection and protection based on provisions regulating an unfair competition are discussed. Each means of protection is assessed based on its usability in relation with the computer program taking the overall impact on the information technology branch as such into account. Furthermore, this theses involves critical evaluation regarding the capability of traditional model of distribution and protection of computer programs to face the rapid technological development in the digital era. With respect to this fact some alternative models (SaaS, Free Software) are cited and an analysis of their practical applicability and perspectives of the future development is conducted