A couple of days ago I wrote about data security and the role of Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors in providing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with greater data security than what they can provide for themselves, within the 4 walls of their business. This argument takes some time to sink in, but most business owners that I talk to eventually agree that the data is less secure at their location than at a professionally managed data center. The metaphor that I used was that data, like cash, should not be stored under the mattress. Phil Wainewright, one of our favorite authors on SaaS, extends the metaphor here with an excellent post about a current debate on email: Keep it in house or have it hosted. It poses an excellent question to which I add the following: Not only do we use banks to manage our cash, but we also use the Internet to manage our banking transactions, from bill pay to account transfers. We are all using software as a service today, unless you are an extreme Luddite, and we are all richer for it. At the end of the day, there are credit card numbers that are stolen, but not because you bought a book at Amazon. It's because some jerk at a retail store stole your numbers when you made a purchase, or a receipt dropped in the garbage fell into the wrong hands. There are security risks in the world, and, yes, the Internet and SaaS vendors have theirs as well. But the average criminal is an idiot who continues to perpetrate their evil in incredibly simple ways. SaaS vendors who want to be around for a while, like NetSuite, go to great lengths to manage security, data and network redundancy and a host of other potential risks, in order to earn the trust of the market. What more important asset do they have than the trust of the marketplace? |
