Recently I was looking at Where There's Muck There's Brass. This talks about the myriad challenges that a developer faces getting software run in diverse environment as a consequence of deploying it at customer sites. He is referring to managing the complexity of disparate OSes, database vendors, web servers, and application server amongst other variables that the product would need to handle.
One of the references include a post by Jason Fried from 37signals on why they would not consider installing software at customer premises. To quote him It would be highly unlikely that we’d sell installable software. His reasons, to list a few, are
- Hosted solution implies controlled development and deployment environment
- Keeps them small and agile
- Avoids backward compatibility headaches
As always there is no one way!!
If you thinking about your strategy for selling web based software, both these articles provide good reasons why Jason and Joel did what they did. You now can make an educated decision rather than follow the herd one way or the other.
For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past 4-5 years and have just now come out of hibernation, here is a good reference for SaaS.
2 comments:
We have struggled with this very issue over the past year. On one hand, the idea of centralizing your source code and sidestepping licensing, registration, installation, seat upgrades, and fulfillment services is appealing and well advised in early releases.
On the other hand, we found that we were missing out on significant market share. Our experience has shown that larger companies and Fed/DOD agencies still insist on running the software in their datacenters. We can only turn our head to this demand for so long, so we decided to swallow the “blue pill”.
The headaches have paid off, we are seeing the product sales volume increasing with larger customers. We are also seeing these opportunities segue into new opportunities. So in the long run it’s a tough decision, and a potentially costly one. My only advice is carefully consider the potential, manage your costs carefully, and be ready to cut your losses if the model doesn’t meet your expectations.
Kevin Doherty, CEO
PHASE 2 International
www.phase2int.com
Hello Kevin,
Thank you for your comments which are on the money. I went to your website and found more information there on SaaS. I am a little unclear on some things:
Are you a VAR for Microsoft products?
Have you created a on demand framework for Microsoft products?
Lastly how did you land at my blog?
-- Raag
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