In an audacious and outstanding post, the unreasonablemen, in one swoop, call into question my mantras of “user-centricity” and “it just has to work”.
The gist of the post is that SaaS could be the catalyst in forcing a move to businesses being more complaint with software. This move, or so the post goes, would lead to a lower cost to the software, a decreased implementation time and thus an increasing revenue stream from the ability to realise the benefits of the software earlier.
I know every business believes their unique, its a universal mantra, At a recent spat of focus groups I must have heard this 20 times …“my business is different”, “that might work for them but we do things different”. I think its wrong. And believe me, at the end of one very insightful group, the businesses there got that too….
So my question is….If you took you’re on-prem code vanilla, wouldn’t that attack one of the core value propositions of SaaS – speed to market and easy upgrades? I’m being provocative but and genuinely interested in the answer… please if you’re a lurker give me you’re comments.
Well – what can you say to that? Other than doesn’t it start us down a slippery slope to mass-homogenization where there really is nothing different between one enterprise and another. OK OK I hear you say, we’re talking about back office software and not a point of differentiation per se, but you get my drift.
How about this – we create lots of little mashable SaaS offerings which then can be mashed according to the particular businesses needs. To an extent this gets us the best of both worlds – low TCO, quick implementation and some degree of customisation to individual users needs and desires.
So UM – I agree that the core code should be consistent but Web 2.0 and the mash-up revolution give us the ability to infinitely customise and tailor bite sized standard product offerings.
Now that’s having you cake and eating it too!
