Whether you have heard of “cloud computing” and software as a service (SAAS) or not, pretty much all of us have used web based applications – whether webmail or social networking sites such as Facebook. What is SAAS and how does it differ from Cloud Computing? There are many definitions and there is much confusion but the two are different. In simple terms the cloud is the infrastructure (computing power) required for the environment whereas SAAS are the applications running in that environment. Tony Crowhurst, FSN writer looks at the increasing range of inexpensive software available in the cloud.
Every cloud has a silver lining
So can we use Software as a Service to run our businesses? The answer is yes however, it depends on a number of factors including your business model, size of organisation (and geographical spread) and how much confidence you have in business critical data stored remotely.
Firstly why SAAS? Well the days of paying for software up front and then getting clobbered for an annual maintenance charge are dying – most of the big players offer SAAS solutions from Microsoft to IBM. They have had to change their model as the hardware requirements and connectivity (broadband primarily) became cheaper and more powerful. This has been a boost for businesses – new software vendors are able to get applications to market more cheaply and traditional vendors have had to become more price conscious. That does not necessarily mean all SAAS software is great you need to look at all the options and the chances are that you will end up with a mix of traditional software, subscription software and free software.
So where do you start? When it comes to productivity software, like most businesses you probably use Microsoft Office for documents, presentations and spreadsheets. It’s become ubiquitous so have at least one copy of Office available especially as it’s become more affordable. The new version of Office takes some getting used to but it’s got some great features – the ability to publish to PDF as well as the preview feature are great as are the access to custom templates e.g. expenses claims. For home users you can pick up Microsoft Office Home and Student edition for around £80 – for 3 PCs.
As your business grows paying for multiple copies of Office does get expensive so have a look at either Google Apps or OpenOffice. Google Apps now has the ability to go “offline” so it’s a much more viable option at $50 per user per year. Open Office (www.openoffice.org) on the other had is absolutely free. Amazing that it hasn’t taken more market share - that shows the power of the Google brand and the entrenched position Microsoft has in this space. It’s a solution offering without too much “bloat” so that you really are only utilising what you need. Zoho (www.zoho.com) almost needs an article on itself – the offering (free for the first three users) spans everything from Email to CRM and Project Management. In some respects though, it’s let down by the very breath of the offerings. There is just so much functionality that you need to lock yourself away for a couple of days and play with the various applications. Another (small) caveat – you have to pay to export all of your data out of Zoho, for example, if you want to move away. However, if you are willing to run your business entirely in the cloud then the pain setting up Zoho is worth it.
As for Email and Collaboration solutions we’ve covered Google Apps and Zoho already and as a full suite, the email and collaboration capabilities are great for both. Other alternatives are Thunderbird from Firefox – if you currently use Outlook Express this is a killer email application. The growth on cloud computing has not missed Microsoft who have just launched the intuitively named Business Productivity Online Suite as well as enhanced Live Workspaces. The former offers a monthly subscription to services such as Exchange Server, Office Communications services and SharePoint from about £10 a month. If you have a distributed workforce it’s an offering really worth investigating – especially the collaboration functionality that is similar to instant messaging for consumers. If you have a limited number of users check out the free offerings as they are more appealing.
Live Workspaces is, on the other hand, free and it allows you to create one or many workspaces, share documents and, collaborate. You need Microsoft Office to edit documents but if you are already using Microsoft Office it’s a credible solution.
Business Intelligence and CRM needs a more cautious approach. The BI space has changed out of all recognition over the last couple of years – 12 vendors have become 4 (IBM, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft) joined by a number of niche players. This is an area where you cannot afford to make a quick decision and it’s still probably worthwhile seeing demonstrations from the traditional vendors. It’s also an area where you need to be absolutely clear about where your data is stored (often outside the UK) and how accessible it is. If you’re using Google Apps then Panorama is a reasonable utility for creating pivot tables and distributing information. If you have Microsoft SharePoint (see Business Productivity above) you can publish Excel analytics to your site for collaboration purposes. Whoever you choose, look for a vendor that has a proven integration to your ERP or database as that is usually the biggest headache.
On the CRM front once again the space is shared by the likes of Zoho, Microsoft CRM (Hosted via a partner channel) and Salesforce. Salesforce group edition offers a great integration to Google ad-words so if your business depends on web searches to attract audiences to your site this is certainly worthwhile. Zoho has the application breath as well as functionality. Microsoft CRM is more of a mid market and enterprise solution and has great integration to Outlook. On the down side it probably needs a degree of consultancy whereas Salesforce and Zoho can probably be implemented with your own resources.
So what’s the answer? To a large extent it depends on the how deep your pockets are and whether you have you have any hang ups about cloud computing in principle. For many it offers a cheap, reliable and accessible solution. For example, in a start-up I use...hosted Exchange for email, Microsoft Office Workspaces for Productivity and Collaboration, Zoho for CRM and Lead Generation Tracking and Firefox for PDF production. It’s a case of “horses for courses” and cloud computing is looking increasingly attractive – if you know where to look.
