I’ve made the switch and I’m never going back. This is the way of the future and those who are ahead of the game have started transitioning their systems to this new way of working. Perhaps you should consider doing same?
So what is SaaS? It stands for software-as-a-service. Basically, SaaS is any web-based software product that is available on a subscription basis. Instead of having software applications reside on your local computer, the software is hosted on the web. That means you don’t have to buy software from Microsoft and others, you don’t have to maintain it, you don’t have worry about security, bugs, patches, upgrades etc., and you can access your software from any web-enabled system around the world.
The rapid advances in internet broadband bandwidth have enabled SaaS to become a reality. The announcement of the new super-fast National Broadband Network by the government will only result in a greater uptake of SaaS in coming years.
SaaS isn’t really a new thing – any of the web-based email services – think Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) or Google’s Gmail – are essentially SaaS services. They do what any email client does, but over the web. There are other well-known SaaS products on the market, too – CRM software Salesforce is probably the best known.
I have just made the leap to SaaS and have transitioned my email to Google Apps/Gmail and I am rapt – no longer do I have to wait an hour for Outlook (and my virus/spam checker) to download email from the server. Now, my email is available instantaneously on Gmail with all of the spam automatically filtered out by Google’s fantastic spam technology.
Gmail can be configured to send and receive email from multiple POP accounts, with customisable email signatures for each account. Gmail also offers some fantastic tools including filters, canned responses, use of labels (instead of folders) and a brilliant search capability that make using this service an absolute dream. Gmail’s contacts, task list and calendar function have made Outlook obsolete. Perhaps best of all, Google Apps can be used on any web-enabled computer and on my mobile device, which means that I don’t have to lug my laptop wherever I go.
Google Apps also offers Google Docs – an alternative to Microsoft Word and Excel – and a host of other web-based applications (video, chat, collaboration websites) for a measly US$50 per user per year for the premium edition (free for the standard edition). Compare that to the cost of a Microsoft Office software licence.
In addition to Google Apps, I have started using wiki software – Atlassian Confluence – for my business. Again, this software is web-based and maintained by Atlassian for a fee of US$490 per year, which I think it pretty cheap.
With a name derived from the Hawaiian ‘wikiwiki’ buses (so named for their speed), the defining characteristic of a wiki is the ability for multiple authors to create and edit documents. The most well known wiki is Wikipedia, which has a distributed authorship across the world. The idea is that the community of users is self-regulating to ensure the veracity of the content – despite this, there have been some well-documented instances where Wikipedia content has been ’skewed’ by nefarious Wikipedia contributors, although that content has been ‘righted’ fairly quickly.
Wikis are great for organisations of all sizes too – they can be used as intranets, external websites, project management portals, knowledge management systems, electronic document records management systems (EDRMS), as a replacement for internal email, or as a replacement for a conventional directory-based file system.
For each of my businesses I have created a collaboration ’space’ within the Confluence wiki which contains pages, blog posts and documents pertaining to the business. Each of these documents can be read by anybody in the space, edited directly on the server, commented on, downloaded, searched and cross-referenced. Each space provides a forum where discussions are held and decisions made and recorded. Over time, these spaces will become rich with historial information and provide us with a valuable knowledge management system.
Slowly I am transitioning all of my files and software to the Google and Atlassian systems. I can see a day when computers no longer have an organic storage capability (ie. a hard drive) – instead they will simply draw upon the vast storage capabilities on the web (this is called ‘cloud computing’). Indeed, there are already slimline laptops on the market that do not have a hard drive built in.
The pessimists and the luddites will argue the toss about the security of information, but the reality is that internal systems are often more vulnerable to failure or compromise than those hosted externally by companies like Google and Atlassian.
I encourage netpreneurs to start exploring the very powerful and inexpensive SaaS capabilities that are available to them. This is the way of the future and early adoption will put your business in a advantageous position.
