DISQUS

Chris Tanner · 7 months ago

"Hosted remotely" - a benefit for the smaller companies where they may not have the budget to secure a shared, safe server on site, and set up remote connections to their office, but otherwise we find (more often than not), remotely hosted is a turnoff for the larger users. Companies with more than 10 staff do regularly have budget for an on site hardware solution, and if backed up by decent out-of-office connections, this is in many cases a better option. Remote access is nothing new as we all know.

Pros and Cons of SaaS have been thrashed around enough for me not to spit them out again - but something that came up this week that made me think was a fast growth company looking for a system - and they needed to own the system because it was part of their exit proposal.

The system running underneath a company defines it's efficiency and therefore is tied to it's value. If your company is running some Joe's SaaS app, then you may be limiting your potential buyers, vis-a-vis a system where you have 100% control of system spec, data and access. If you're pitching for a sale in 3 years - where's your SaaS app going to be then?

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

We need to be very careful here Chris. The move from capex to opex is real. Merrill's did a monster deal with Salesforce.com - that's a potential saas benefit. I am surprised your potential customer thought that system ownership is an exit requirement. Not sure that makes sense on the facts as presented. It's a bit like saying I need to own my fleet of salesmen's cars.

Chris Tanner · 7 months ago

Agreed - personally I think it's a Good Thing, but it is one of the most common walls we hit on a premium account sale - perhaps because the size clients we are dealing with are owner-managers still heavy on the "I need personal control" - less of an issue with a larger company and different management philosophies?

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

aaah...well...control is something that can be discussed in this context

Richard Messik · 7 months ago

Actually, whilst obviously an over simplification, I think the Touring Test is a good definition. There is obviously a lot more to it, but it sums it up rather nicely.

Emily Coltman · 7 months ago

I guess what the Touring Test is trying to establish is "is this product SaaS or isn't it?"

More, for example, would fail the test because it needs to be loaded on a specific PC (although it uses the Internet to exchange data).

Whether the SaaS product has any benefit for the (prospective) customer is another debate entirely.

That's how I see it anyway.

M

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

The whole premise upon which I built this piece is that technical definitions don't matter in the eyes of customers provided they deliver value. Such definitions live in the minds of technologists as a way of segmenting markets the way they choose.

As you say, More! would fail under this definition but it is still out there delivering value.

Emily Coltman · 7 months ago

I grant you that. But Duane's post doesn't read like it was meant as a sales post to me, but as a techie discussion.

So it reads to me like you're giving him 0 out of 10 for failing in Geography, when he was actually doing a French test :-)

M

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

[kaltura-widget wid="kcaz8n9wbw" size="comments" /]

John Smith · 7 months ago

As I'm aware of your history of attacking Kashflows CEO Duane Jackson I thought I had better read the original articles from which you quote.

Unsurprisingly you have deliberately grasped the wrong end of the stick and for a large part of your article you have just made things up. You've not even got basic facts such as Mr Pattersons name right.

Did it become a "circle jerk" before or after you were forced to give up your 10% in SAAS vendor Freeagent Central as a result of you trying to use your supposed "independence" as a weapon against Kashflow in a previous attack as documented here: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showth...

You have a strange and unhealthy obsession with Kashflow and Jackson and it reflects very badly on you. Grow up and move on.

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

Thanks for pointing out the typo - I'm well known for those. Now corrected. Check your facts. I never owned 10% in FAC, neither was I forced to do anything. It just made sense when having to deal with people like you that assume a shareholding = some sort of influence.

Tech companies and their reps always behave in this way ergo = circle jerk. It's incredibly unhelpful when dealing with people in the real world who don't care about delivery mechanisms but do care about value.

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

...and while we're at, let's not forget my history of critiquing SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Sage and others...but if you look closely you'll see the title referred to the Touring Test which parsed something written elsewhere.

Jim Bennett · 7 months ago

Have to say I think you've missed a trick here Dennis, as any salesperson who tried to use multi-tenanted or remote hosted in their opening gambit wouldn't be putting bread on their table. In contrast, a salesperson who used the actual touring test would probably be off to a good start, before hitting the actual discussion of benefits and value. As a metaphor for the benefits of SaaS, it's actually fairly elegant. It isn't the whole conversation, but it is memorable, concise, and helps get the message across to techie and non-techie listeners alike. In that context, it adds value to have such a definition.

Dennis Howlett · 7 months ago

@jim: I have no doubt but as I tried to convey in the piece, I'm not convinced that a tech led intro matters. It's got to be about the benefits for the simple reason that switching is so hard for people who have a 600 year old history they can look back on and say: 'What's wrong with that?'

Jeremy Roche · 7 months ago

Against the definition from John Paterson that Dennis quotes above, I don't think the 'Touring' test works. How does the test John defines actually prove that the application meets his SaaS definition?

We have been delivering on-premises/hosted applications since 2000 that meet the test of use in a hotel browser with no plug-ins. In fact in the early years we occasionally used a hotel browser as the proof that it really was a 100% browser app (that's when browser apps were cool advanced technology, probably not something to boast about since about 2002!). I wouldn't define these apps as SaaS though and they don't meet the other parts of the definition.

Just using an app in a browser is hardly a test of anything these days. I can use exchange via webmail on the hotel receptionists PC, but it is something hosted by us and behind our firewall, not really anyone's definition of SaaS.

I guess you could modify the Touring test to say you should demonstrate that you can sign up for a trial and then pay a subscription immediately and have the app provisioned before your eyes and then use it in a real environment. That would then show that the app was more SaaS.

If John wants to define a test, then he should define one that meets all the aspects of his SaaS definition and not one small part of it, that it runs without plug-ins in a browser.

We should all remember though that prospective customers are typically more interested in what an application can do for their business than the delivery model. Customers buy apps primarily because they are compelling and you are compelling as a company, not because of the way they happen to be delivered. Part of the reason a SaaS app can be compelling is because of the value propositions such as Opex vs Capex, reduction in operating costs, less headaches with managing servers etc, but at the end of the day, it still needs to be a good app.

Emily Coltman · 7 months ago

Re your video - take your fair point :-)

M

Gerry Allan · 7 months ago

Runs in a web-browser with no additional software required:

Is this really a requirement for something to be Saas. Any Windows application could be delivered in a remotely hosted fashion via Terminal Services or Citrix. The Terminal Services (RDP) client is preinstalled on all Windows PCs since XP Pro, so there is no requirement for any additional client installation. I do not understand the preoccupation with the web browser as the only delivery mechanism.

Mike McDerment · 7 months ago

Hey Dennis...not going to wade to far into this, but did want to show my face.

All I can say about SaaN is it was mainly intended for the tech audience, not customers. It's a new way to approach software design and we wanted to make that point. Said another way, it is tech babble for techies...the flip side of this coin is, a significant portion of our customers are techies...and they get the benefit of this piece of tech babble...which kind of brings things full circle.