

Signs that It May be Time to Consider Software as a Service (SaaS) - tusken
http://www.focus.com/ugr/how-to/hosting-bandwidth/10-signs-it-may-be-time-consider-software-service-saas/
Software as a service (SaaS) enables organizations to take advantage of critical functions and services without building, expanding or operating computing hardware, software or infrastructures. SaaS is the most widely used and mature element of the evolving set of resources known as "cloud computing," and often takes advantage of cloud-based computing, storage and management resources to deliver its business benefits.
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verdant
The bottom line is usually "You should keep in house what can gain you a
competitive advantage (your core business), other stuff can be outsourced if
it saves costs".

That's an oversimplification, but it sums up what the general thinking should
be.

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timwiseman
This article seems to be more of a thinly disguised promotion of SaaS than a
real list of reasons to consider it. Many of them are always true of all
companies everywhere. For instance:

"6. IT support requirements are siphoning limited resources away from my
organization’s core business activities."

Even if your main business is in the IT field, supporting it is always going
to siphon away resources without directly generating revenue (unless you
happen to sell support contracts, and even then your INTERNAL IT support is
pure overhead) and those resources are always limited.

A more useful phrasing would be: "IT support could be more effeciently and
cost effectively provided by another company."

This is certainly true for many companies, but also certainly not true for
others.

This statement though is a good one: "9. Our business needs do not require
extensive or frequent customization of critical software or services."

If all of your needs could be met by off-the-shelf software without extensive
adjustments then Saas is probably worth looking at.

The bottom line is that SaaS is excellent for many situations and is often
worth serious consideration, it can often save considerable cost for one
thing. But it also comes with many trade offs and drawbacks. It will be
appropriate for some companies and not for others.

For the immediate future that balance will likely continue to shift more and
more heavily towards SaaS, but where the balance point will land remains to be
seen.

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dattaway
My last employer used SaaS. It went unreachable one weekend...

