Interesting perspective on the whole SaaS debate on the ZDNet Between the Lines blog in their post SaaS: Shelfware as a service?.
Basically SaaS is not a magic bullet for enterprise apps, the problems associated with large complex software can’t be magicked away just because someone else runs the software for you.
Our hosted products and SaaS products are identical, as is our deployment methodology. I’d like to think we’ve put in the design time to ensure that deploying a replacement for the paper notebook is as painless as possible. That’s the result of experience and careful design, which I hope produces the same results regardless of how it’s deployed – on premises or SaaS. That some of our customers find purchasing our products as a Service is more a matter of convenience and economic preference.
Simon,
Agree completely. That is exactly our perspective at LabLynx with our LIMS product. However, SaaS does something that the traditional software model cannot do easily. It provides instant gratification when it comes to trying out the software.
If you have ever tried to deal with installation of Open Source (OS) apps, you know what a PITA it is. SaaS is a real benefit to OS apps. Now with the inclusion of OS applications as a SaaS delivery, they can become more mainstream and can be better monetized by the software developer.
I created: http://www.saasforscience.com just for this purpose. For your ELN product, please feel free to go to this site and create your own group like what I did for OpenClinica and then invite folks to join your group. The idea is to build a big marketplace for SaaS applications that vendors can create their own groups for free and users can join for free. It is all free because it costs me nothing and a big community is better for all of us.
So the point is… SaaS affords instant gratification to the vendors and users and helps cut the time line down between the thought that you need a system and finally having one.
Thx,
John