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back to article Software as a service: Separating the bells from the whistles

The most obvious attraction of software as a service (SaaS) is that it gives small firms access to software they could not otherwise afford. In exchange for handing their data over to the care of someone with a huge data centre, they also benefit from economies of scale. But since there is no such thing as a free lunch, these …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Exactly what is any of this conjecture based on?

    People choosing to buy or not buy MS Office has had no effect whatsoever on Microsoft peppering it with 'bells and whistles', so why should people choosing to rent it make the slightest difference?

    It's all very well writing about what the customer wants, but what a supplier is willing to supply, bundle or charge is an entirely different matter. Hey, wouldn't it be great if we could get everything for free with no security risks, downtime or data loss? Come on Microsoft, buck your ideas up...

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      Re Exactly what is any of this conjecture based on?

      You're right - the idea that suppliers will be forced into offering tailored packages to suit the users only holds good if the vendor is willing to allow it. The only thing that might change that is if more people started using alternatives to MS Office, but there's no reason why they should do that more in a hosted-cloud solution than they would do so now.

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  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    Nice idea, if MS plays by the rules of a *free* market

    Monopoly, what monopoly.

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  3. T J
    FAIL

    Its all utter bunkum

    Its all a load of complete bollox. SaaS is a marketing executive's coke fuelled pipe dream and so is 'The Clowwwwd'.

    What exactly is the advantage SUPPOSED to be?

    Offsite/outsourced infrastructure? - yeah, see how far that gets you, its been an unmitigated disaster for everyone over the last 2 decades. Unless you are a 'Consultant', but those leeches win every time (I should know, I was one).

    Affordability? Use the open source gear and stop mucking about. They are mature products now and work more or less perfectly. Besides, this rubbish has nothing to do with open or proprietary code - buy what you can afford and use it well. Dont listen to reps.

    Consistency? Pffft, you can kiss that goodbye right from word one. No matter what you do, the owners of the servers will rationalize a way to f**** you up. Be it a configuration change, or an upgrade you dont want (because THEIR security/whatever is at risk - whats that got to do with you?). And I'm not sure where they're going to find this network that stays up forever, I dont think anyone has developed one yet and it sounds expensive due to the tons of fairy dust required.

    Server load? Come again? Hardware is FREE now, and networks are just about too.

    Why would you need to run anything externally? At all? Ever?

    Well.....you wouldn't, won't, and don't.

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