More companies are moving to SaaS in order to make cost savings, says Peter Galvin, chief marketing officer at ProofPoint.

“In financially difficult times, customers want more for less, which explains the movement to SaaS”, says ProofPoint’s CMO. “Even those cynical about the capabilities and performance of SaaS become a lot more comfortable with the idea when they see the cost savings they could make when moving to Software as a Service”, says Galvin.

ProofPoint, an email security, compliance, and encryption vendor, has witnessed “a trend” whereby customers move from application products to SaaS, both of which are ProofPoint offerings. “Companies are now being forced to do more for less, and as always, have to prove their return on investment.”

More than half of ProofPoint’s new business has gone to SaaS in recent times, with companies striving for the 30% cost saving that moving to SaaS will provide. “This then frees up the budget for other projects.”

Compliance, admits Galvin, continues to be a driver for their customers. “Customer drive starts with security, but very quickly moves into compliance and data protection. The protection and privacy of data is being taken more seriously now new fines for non-compliance have been introduced”, says Galvin, referring to the Information Commissioner’s new powers.

Security, says Galvin, “is becoming more important, not less. Fines and public scrutiny are partly responsible for this. Not necessarily the media, but consumers that will no longer tolerate their private information being breached”.

Today, Proofpoint announced it has been positioned by Gartner in the leaders quadrant of the 2010 'Magic Quadrant for Secure email Gateways'.