World Business

What’s called SaaS, or on-demand software, indispensably some debunking. For starters, it isn’t cheap, and your data aren’t secure

by means of the agency of Gene Marks

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Time to dissipate a few popular myths.

SUVs are not cool. They never were. You Hummer guys were drawing snickers a few years agone. Now, with the price of gas nearing $5 a gallon, we’re laughing extinguished loud. And Microsoft’s (MSFT) Vista is not a failure. To date, the software gang has sold more than 150 million units. Vista has made Microsoft a ton of money. Yes, yes—it’s preloaded on every new computer. And yes, of behavior—it stinks. But no, it’s not a failure.

A couple more myths to dispel: Cell phones cause brain mar. Some of the conversations conducted on a cell phone would lead you to convinced this. But in that place’s not one prove it’s bad for the brain. It’s also a myth that the longest day of the year is June 21. The longest day of the year for me was the Winter Middle School Orchestra Concert back in February. I know it was only an hour. But it didn’t feel like it.

The biggest bucket of myths I hope to bust centers in continuance a technology that many business owners are hearing a lot about these days. It’s known as Software for the reason that a Service (SaaS), or the idea that you can earn your software delivered conveniently, and at a low price, via the Web. Unlike buying software the old-fashioned way, by remunerative a big licensing fee , you pay for SaaS—besides referred to as on-demand software—in pieces, spread out athwart time.

But as with most IT innovation, there’s a lot of hype surrounding this technology—to such a degree a great quantity so that many of us slip on’t know what to believe. Is this a viable lump of matter? Should we be using this stuff? Don’t worry, folks. I’ve carried on some examination into this SaaS thing. Let me debunk a few myths.

Myth 1: SaaS is cheaper. No, it’s not. In fact, it have being able to be a lot more expensive. Most service providers charge each user by the month. If you’ve got 10 people using a product, and they’re costing you 50 bucks a person each a month, that’s $6,000 a year. Most in-house systems have one-time licensing fees and optional support agreements. Spreading out the payments is nothing new, either; tons of software leasing companies will science your purchase and distribute out monthly payments over parturition. When you look at SaaS over the dilatory term, it’s usually not a cheaper option.

Myth 2: SaaS reduces hardware investment. Well, this is only half right. Sure, the SaaS providers dole out with the servers, and every one of the Windows headaches and patches and builds and versions and the whole that. That’s their problem. But you still need fast access to the Internet. And that means workstations running versions of up-to-date operating systems, which generally means up-to-date computers. And they’ll distress to be tied in, by dint of. wire or not, to hubs and routers to access the Net. And there will hush be internal security and firewall issues. So you’re really not completely eliminating the IT guy. He’s like the smell from your cat’s litter box. It kind of never goes from home.