ForumsTechnology Management

Software as a Service – Is it right for my business?

The shift towards *“Software as a Service (SaaS)*” paradigm is accelerating in the industry due to several factors; Not just the cost of having to build and maintain the Technology Infrastructure is significantly lower but more importantly businesses can build what they need on-demand and faster that makes them highly agile and responsive to the market demands.

Today the Infrastructure as well as security have come along way and are quite matured. Fortune 500 firms such as Start bucks and Morgan Stanley run their CRM applications on the cloud using saleforce.com. Microsoft offers Business productivity on-line suite starting at $15 per user / month that provide a bundle of messaging, collaboration & communications software.

You can visit my blog for a list of popular SaaS providers and their offerings at http://seepath.blogspot.com/

Yes I use Google Apps and love it.

$50 per user per year. I get email, calendar, IM, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Video (which is like my company's own private youtube.)

I actually do IT Consulting and I am a Google Apps Authorized reselller, so if anyone is intereted in Google Apps let me know, checkout my website for contact details.

I also have a webinar comming up where I will be introducing this very concept and Google Apps, I submitted a post to the Business Classifiedes section, but it appears it must be approved before being posted so try checking there in a few days, or contact me for info.

But yeah online software can be a great assest. Particularly when it comes to something like email that would otherwise force you to have your own server, which requires updates, maintenance and can really get expensive fast.