They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, however as with all things in life it depends on how good the imitation is! It may look similar, it may be badged the same, but does it bear more careful scrutiny? Let’s take a look..
As is often the case, the traditional software companies attempt to confuse prospective buyers with articles stating that SaaS is too risky or incapable of delivering the solutions they need. The stark reality is that those vendors who are left behind with legacy/traditional solutions offer on-premise software mated to on-demand commercial models because they have no choice, they do not have an authentic, state of the art SaaS solution to put forward.
In our opinion a traditional on-premise software solution combined with a SaaS commercial model, (or vice versa) is a classic example of the industry attempting to ‘have its cake and eat it’. The same is true for those with SaaS software solutions, who wish to obtain the majority of the investment from the client up-front. These companies have not, or are not financially able to, embraced the long term and partnership approach of a true SaaS model.
So who to believe? We are sure that people are well used to seeing biased opinions, disguised as serious business advice and that are suited to that particular company’s portfolio of products, it’s a well worn path! However we think that some important points are being deliberately ignored:
1. Internet connections are not unreliable; our uptime of over 99.99% across all of our clients proves this. Availability of the internet is an accepted feature for most modern businesses.
2. Software as a Service is not just a different way of funding software, it’s much more than that and includes very powerful functionality across virtually all verticals.
3. Internal IT Resources are becoming over utilised and increasingly under resourced, so what can we do to help?
Global Growth of SaaS
World wide use of Software as a Service solutions is predicted by the research and advisory company Gartner™ to grow by over 20% in 2013 to $12 Billion, with projections of growth to over $21 Billion by 2015. This growth is driven by SaaS providers offering a sophisticated software solution that:
• meets their clients needs
• helps them to do more
• is easy to implement
But… without any of the headaches traditional software creates. It will be managed on their clients’ behalf by a company that is highly motivated (due to the short term contractual commitment to them) to make sure the software works, not only at Go Live, but throughout the life of the contract.
Multiple users to a single software solution make sure that the:
• software keeps improving
• IT backbone is top notch
• support desk is service and customer oriented.
In summary:
• connection to the internet is fundamental to your business
• the commercial model for any purchase needs to be flexible and suit your business and
• your IT person/team could probably do with a hand..
So why would you want a pale imitation, sincere or otherwise?
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