Vecta on SaaS

Vecta Consulting

Vecta on SaaS (part #1)

Some years ago, before the bubble burst, I was quoted in the UK's Financial Times.

That article was about the likelihood of success for Application Service Providers. As I recall, I argued that the ASP model was flawed for two reasons:

First, software was rarely, if ever, produced to a consistent standard. The version you opened on Tuesday might be significantly different from the one you used on Monday. Enough of an issue if it was the formatting of a flyer about a social event; more if it was a critical business calculation; and so on. Trust matters.Second, few users had the bandwidth to support the more complex applications that were being touted as the most likely offerings. Performance matters.I thought only very complex, very expensive packages could effectively be delivered using the ASP model.

Now we have software being delivered over the web as a service; is it the same? was I wrong?My impression is that the successful SaaS deliveries are new products that use web services, rather than old products re-engineered; much as Excel designed for Windows vanquished the previously dominant 1-2-3 designed for DOS and adapted for Windows.Successful new products add things that are only possible in the new environment and don't have lots of baggage from features that no longer work as well.Where's this going?

We are being offered software as a service; but now we are also being offered infrastructure - storage, processing, etc - as a service frmo the cloud. It's new, it's shiny, it's cheap - just get out your credit card and you're off. A start-up service provider has never been able to enter the market so easily. Even Microsoft is begining to adapt once more.

And we are not just talking software or communications services. Pretty soon, on a (smart) cellphone, car PC, home TV, or game console near you, you could offer and receive a host of services built and delivered in this way.

Which will survive? What are the issues?

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