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Read a great online post
today by Phil Wainewright about an Australian Company that recently got out of
the Office application hosting business. The article really helps to put
on-demand, software as a service, solutions in perspective. Applications,
like your desktop office word processor, have no business being offered as a
service because accessing them over the internet has no real advantage to the
user or the people who read the user's documents.
Word processors and spreadsheets are applications that gain nothing from
a native web interface, because they are not meant to be real-time
collaborative. I work on the document, and then I send it to you and you work on
the document. It is not as if we are working on the document simultaneously.
This is the central benefit of software as a service: It enables
a new level of collaboration among the people involved. A CAD drawing may be a
whole different story. It's not too hard to imagine several people collaborating
on a CAD drawing.
How about your accounting package? (I wrote about
this just yesterday.) Is there a good case to make for a web-based
accounting system? To meet the standard that we've set, the customer and the
business office staff must find real benefit from online order entry and bill
payment. Customer self-service when it comes to ordering and making payments can
be extremely helpful to both sides of the transaction in many businesses. Taking
a phone call, an email or a fax and then re-entering it into the order
management system is wasted duplicate entry. The customer has a greater sense of
control when they are able to order online themselves. They are in fact
collaborating with you. They are less likely to make a mistake. When the online
order entry is linked directly to the Inventory module the business staff can
handle inventory issues before they become problems.
In the situation where a company has several locations
with groups of employees and/or partners a web-based accounting system
is very attractive. Several locations can access the
system without the need for a wide area network or VPN software, or, worse,
a dial-up connection with the home office. But they work in a real-time data
environment.
Strangely the opposite situation is also common today. There are
many businesses without a central office - everyone essentially works on
the road. Companies in consulting and networking are often setup like this. A
Web-based accounting system is perfect for these situations. Staff can get work
done in the off hours from home, if need be.
Of course there is an excellent case to be made for online CRM software. The
better question in the CRM space is "Are there any software solutions not worth
offering as an on-premise solution?" Yes! CRM! Especially when it comes to
partners and the direct sales force. But even for Customer Service Reps who want
to work out of the office, or marketing managers located in a satellite
office.
There is a lot of interest in software as a service today, and rightfully so.
There is a great case to make for reduced IT overhead and maintenance. But at
the end of the day you still need to offer software users and their customers a
good case for making the switch from captive, on-premise solutions, especially
desktop solutions. Customer self service is the case you must make.
It gives customers control of the process and you lose - what? Duplicate
data entry? | 
