Software as a Service is a high profile new way to consume IT.
Consuming software as a utility just as you consume electricity or water is very appealing. The analogy suggests continuous availability and ease of consumption on demand.
The utility analogy also betrays one of the most key limitations to Software as a Service. Electricity supply suffers from blackouts. Water supply suffers from pipe failure. In both cases, you have little control of when and how your service will be resumed.
Software as a Service can also suffer from outages. When it happens you have no alternative but to wait.
On the other hand, economies of scale suggest that Software as a Service vendors can build a more resilient data center and software offering than most individual companies could afford.
What's more important to you?
A high likelihood of stability, or a high level of control?
Prompted by this article about a Salesforce.com outage in their system for partners: http://www.aspnews.com/news/weekly/article.php/3665531
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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