Digital Convergence Weblog: It is a service, not software, and Google will help you with it

December 20, 2006

It is a service, not software, and Google will help you with it

Ricardo Perez Garrido

The software-as-service proposition has been around for some time already. But with the popularization of initiatives like Apps for your domain from Google, it is time for SaS to become mainstream and reach the business press, leving behind the IT rooms. One of the keystones to mark a new technology as something to look at is the moment it reaches the pages of The Economist. Not that this is the first time, or that it will really bring a big change, but it presents sort of a "mature enough" value to many readers and decision makers around the world.

And this article in The Economist deals with software becoming a common service that can be paid for time, compsumption... like any utility. Well, that is not news, the discussion on these issues has been big since the article "IT Doesn't Matter". My answer is that, at this moment, complex applications are being offered as services, and the trend is affecting some key services with more and more flexibility, and -what is more important- integration capabilities. That means space for innovation outside and inside companies, using technology and flexibility as drivers, like never before.

Apparently the opportunities for those willing to provide services for small and medium sized companies are not over with Salesforce.com or Research in Motion. Maybe there is some space for innovation here, and an interesting one not only for Google or Microsoft. What do you think? Is this really new or just a consequence of communication and storage costs going down?

Posted on 20 December 2006 in Tecnologías convergentes / Convergent technologies, Software, English

Comments

In my opinnion is not new and this growing trend may be also be explained by Internet's omnipresence (places & devices) and maintenance& evolution costs.
With IT as a service not only you override the famous cost of ownership, but also get a way of permanently having state of the art technology.

Posted by: Miguel Roig at December 21, 2006 09:51 AM

Miguel,

I couldn't agree more. The implications for those that can capture the collective trust of the market are huge. The new proposals (like SUN and their container) are just making this offers easier. IT becoming "easy" to understand, at least for the basic stuff.

Posted by: Ricardo at December 21, 2006 12:20 PM

There is no doubt that some applications, the ones that used to be packaged standard solutions, are easily becoming Internet based solutions.
If the service provided by an ISP is good enough there are no strong enough reasons for many companies for keeping those applications internal.
This trend is at the same time helping to release key internal resources for many companies to swith their efforts to innovative alternatives and to the development and maintenance of new applications that can generate a real market advantage. The "Killer Application" race will speed up.

Posted by: Néstor Miranda at December 26, 2006 05:22 PM

Nestor,

While I agree in the basic reasoning, I see some problems taking that message to the departments that are suffering the outsourcing of those tasks. They see the change as a threat more than an opportunity, and the time spent in communication of a global strategy based on innovation -assuming it exists- is low or it doesn't count at all.

Posted by: Ricardo at January 5, 2007 09:06 AM

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