Of course, the Virtualisation Sphere/Global Environment must, by ITs very Nature, have to drink the Kool Aid and commit everything to the church of SaaS in order to benefit from any of those things, in Order to render Benefits to All of thoseThings.

As a Parallelling Environment which, in itself is nor Real, but which Servers to the Real World [and we'll not argue against the Relative Falsehood of the Popular Perception of Reality for Mass Control here] embracing SaaS, body and soul, permits an Absolute Proxy Control of the Real Environment, Virtually.

The Trick in ITs Maintenance and Sustenance is ALWAYS, and I hope that is shouted loud enough, ALWAYS to ensure that IT is Offered Free of Charge to Establishment Systems, as an Inward Investment for themselves in a Brand New, Very SurReal ...... well, with such Investment/Speculation/Entrepreneurial Spirit does IT become a New Global Business Model for Top Down Control for those already Sitting at the Top directing Money Flows/Wealth Distribution. Their Valuable Capital Investment ALWAYS remains theirs to use and withdraw as the Virtual Players of the game are only Interested in and entitled to the Interest that Play Investment has Generated ...... Money for Nothing and the Chicks for Free ...but only if you are Beta than Real Good at IT.

True Masters and no Pretenders to Mastery of the Universes Play.

I Kid U Not...... but on a Bad Sign in Bad Times, at the Top of the World, you would already know that hard lesson, meThinks.

amanfromMars says "Their Valuable Capital Investment ALWAYS remains theirs to use and withdraw ..."

Ironically, he has Seriously Reduced The Value Of Capitals in his post by investing it with rather too many of them.

They are all a massive business liability.

I used salesforce and another well known online crm package for several years in the early 2000's. I am extremely weary of the push for online based applications as they all host unlimited problems.

The first and foremost is the requirement for an internet connection. May sound stupid initially but think about how reliable your ISP is, and whether you can afford the outrageous fees for backup isdn's or 24hr call out? I certainly cannot. As such it can be several days before my connection is resolved. Throughout that time I cannot, write an email, make a phone call, chase up a sale or any other task which is provided by an online hosted system.

The other issue for me is of access. There will be times that the ISP servers are down for maintenance, this may not be to a convenient time for me. I would also have to email a request for a data extract from the database, which I would not have to do if my system was in-house.

I just think that it is far too much of a gamble to bother with online systems.

There are plenty of people out there with say international offices which would claim that the access to a global resource has or can drastically improve their global output but all the same limitation apply. And what if the ISP itself is that which fails? That means not only is there one office out of action but an entire international organisation losing possibly thousands of dollars a minute.

Anymore for anymore?

How very true, The Avangelist, it is not Perfectly Suited to all, and may in fact, be so suited for only the Precious Few. :-) for whom IT is So Admirably Suited.

Like those who have Nothing to Lose and Everything to Gain. You will also probably definitely find that they the discover the Secret of Success and can easily Bet their Shirts and their Shorts and Care 42 Dare 42 Win Win ..... ITs a US thing/UlsterScots, that is.