I love it when serendipity happens. I was talking to a great prospect this morning. They are currently using two systems, a very popular shopping cart with a very popular accounting package. They rekey everything. Well as the business has grown she has come to understand that this arrangement hinders her company's growth. She wants an integrated system. Great, she has the right ideas but she is stepping out in virgin wilderness. She is moving from a little accounting package on a pc to a 'system'; a server, running an operating system, a database and applications. What does she expect? How does one who has never owned a 'system' even have expectations about what it takes to run one? Then I came across a very interesting post from Deniss Howlett, the AccMan Pro here, and this really put the issue into excellent relief. I am not the only one looking for good figures on TCO. This is an excellent post for those who want to start thinking about what it takes to run a business on server system. Too many small business people, God bless them, are up to their neck trying to run their enterprise, they cannot be expected to understand the world of IT. They need better advice from their advisors, and TCO would be a great way to start the conversation. Dennis is also right about 50% of the cost of a system being in the maintenance and ongoing upkeep for SMEs as well as their larger brothers. So if you buy an on-premise solution for 50,000 expect to spend on average 25,000 per year in maintenance. Even more if you hire your own IT to run it. This is why, as Dennis also points out, SaaS, or software as a Service, is a much better bargain for most businesses. |
