Signs that It May be Time to Consider Software as a Service (SaaS)

http://www.focus.com/ugr/how-to/hosting-bandwidth/10-signs-it-may-be-time-consider-software-service-saas/

by tusken • 17 years ago

13 3 17 years ago

Software as a service (SaaS) enables organizations to take advantage of critical functions and services without building, expanding or operating computing hardware, software or infrastructures. SaaS is the most widely used and mature element of the evolving set of resources known as "cloud computing," and often takes advantage of cloud-based computing, storage and management resources to deliver its business benefits.

verdant• 17 years ago

The bottom line is usually "You should keep in house what can gain you a competitive advantage (your core business), other stuff can be outsourced if it saves costs".

That's an oversimplification, but it sums up what the general thinking should be.

timwiseman• 17 years ago

This article seems to be more of a thinly disguised promotion of SaaS than a real list of reasons to consider it. Many of them are always true of all companies everywhere. For instance:

"6. IT support requirements are siphoning limited resources away from my organization’s core business activities."

Even if your main business is in the IT field, supporting it is always going to siphon away resources without directly generating revenue (unless you happen to sell support contracts, and even then your INTERNAL IT support is pure overhead) and those resources are always limited.

A more useful phrasing would be: "IT support could be more effeciently and cost effectively provided by another company."

This is certainly true for many companies, but also certainly not true for others.

This statement though is a good one: "9. Our business needs do not require extensive or frequent customization of critical software or services."

If all of your needs could be met by off-the-shelf software without extensive adjustments then Saas is probably worth looking at.

The bottom line is that SaaS is excellent for many situations and is often worth serious consideration, it can often save considerable cost for one thing. But it also comes with many trade offs and drawbacks. It will be appropriate for some companies and not for others.

For the immediate future that balance will likely continue to shift more and more heavily towards SaaS, but where the balance point will land remains to be seen.

dattaway• 17 years ago

My last employer used SaaS. It went unreachable one weekend...

Signs that It May be Time to Consider Software as a Service (SaaS)

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