For many Indians, the word “saas” means mother-in-law. Thankfully that is not what it is in the software world! It incidentally happens to be an area that I am exploring at this current moment and hence decided to link it up here!
This article says a lot of interesting things about SaaS.
A few observations of mine… This is the first time I read about the company Saugatuck Technologies, but no sooner than I did, I read about the same boutique consultancy in several other places. Rather odd or rather interesting.
Anyway coming back to the point, the author says several interesting things about SaaS.
One of the reader pointed out there are financial hazards to SaaS as well. Payments must go every month. Any delays and your services and data are held at ransom! This is definitely not the ideal scenario for an ailing company.
There is one thing that bugs me about the whole thing though. Almost all (I am just trying to be correct here because I don’t know with a 100% certainty if it is all) SaaS offerings are web-based. This means that the customization I can have on the application is very limited. It is also very difficult to do. I suppose I would require the permission of the SaaS hoster etc. This to me sounds like a genuine issue. With an organization’s functions and requirements changing so rapidly in this day and age, it is almost insane to think that an application created 2 years ago would satisfy my need just right. I suppose the charm of a desktop application lies in precisely that - the customizability and the fact that you can go offline with all your work and it would still be there!
Let’s see if we can develop a model of SaaS which has a desktop application. I suppose that would be a perk for the customer! It might offer a lot more peace of mind that their data is not being held at ransom, rather just their services (shouldn’t that be the way?) Holding data at ransom seems like another method to force the customer to stay with you (if it is not licenses or proprietary data formats!). This kills the incentive to make software customers want to use and continue using for ages!
