SaaS-sy year ahead
Steve Russell expects 2008 to be a bumper year for the Software as a Service (SaaS) business model in Asia – not surprising given that Russell is the President of leading on-demand CRM software vendor Salesforce.com.
Industry research pundits from Gartner & IDC share Russell’s optimism, and many traditional software vendors have also jumped onto the SaaS bandwagon – Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Adobe, amongst others, have recently launched hosted applications of various sorts. Many of these SaaS products are aimed squarely at the small & medium business (SMB) segment. The lower upfront cost of the SaaS model is often touted as a major selling point in the SMB market.
However, adopting SaaS-style hosted applications is not without its headaches – reliability, security & vendor lock-in are all very real issues that SMBs evaluating on-demand, hosted software must address carefully.
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GonzoBuzz Blog
That’s true but there are headaches when implementing any kind of software system.
http://warriorscorner.blogspot.com/2008/01/try-before-you-buy.html
Comment by Darren Louie — January 9, 2008 @ 6:45 am
SaaS is a concept that has been around for awhile.
However businesses have been reluctant to take it up due to the “headaches” mentioned above.
I see that the issues of reliability (and ease of use) as well as security are being handled better these days with new technology. The SaaS offerings are easier to install and use.
The SaaS market needs some well established, committed “champions” to promote, sell and implement the specific soluions that are relevant to SMBs. This will create the relevant case studies.
SMBs must be moving to a position where cost effective, productivity tools (previously unaffordable) are now viable options via SaaS, to increase SMB throughput, turnaround, profit and success.
Who is going to drive this revolution?
Comment by Darron Passlow — January 9, 2008 @ 11:35 am