Call them the technology equivalent of old religious wars: Mac vs Windows, Mainframes vs PCs, Blackberries vs. iPhones, Open vs Proprietary... they all have passionate people on both sides of the issue.
The latest one is the Software-as-a-Service or Software-plus-Services debate. The Software-as-a-Service camp argues that every single piece of software can be delivered over the internet. The Software-plus-Services crowd argues that the user is served best when there is local software installed on their machines is complemented with internet services.
Well, it just dawned on me that this battle is over. Done. C'est Fini.
The clear winner is the Software-plus-Services camp. Let me explain.
To access the on-line services you need a browser - and that is software. The browser needs an operating system - and that is software too. So really, we all need software to access internet services like Zoho or Google search. But that's about everything the Software+Services camps has gotten right.
On the other hand, of course you don't need bloated, expensive, buggy, updated-every-once-in-a-blue-moon software to access the services you need and care about. The Software side of the S+S equation can be made of Linux+Firefox, Windows+Firefox, MacOs+Firefox or, as of lately, Safari on your iPhone or Opera Mini in some other mobile phones.
As for me, I use Windows Vista. Certainly not because I wanted to, but because Microsoft forced me to get Vista on my new Dell machine. So I'm stuck with it. I was apprehensive about using Vista ... but after a few days I got used to it. Wanna know why? No, it's not because Vista is good - it's because it doesn't matter. The underlying operating system you use is irrelevant. 99% of the time I'm at a computer, I'm inside the browser, and I keep about 15 local files on my machine. The rest of the local applications I access are applications every single operating system has... since about 1994. Traditional software is not dead, it's just that for the vast majority of users it just doesn't matter anymore.
Why do I bring this topic up today? Today marks the start of Office 2.0, a conference about new technologies in the workplace that Zoho is sponsoring.
So in that spirit, I thought I'd do a quick recap of some of the things businesses can do without installing any software... not in the server room neither on their local machines (other than their operating system and Firefox browser):
| Getting Customers | Managing Their Business | Productivity & Collaboration | Other |
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Businesses can do all of that on-line, with just their browser (and yes, businesses can do most of it at a single destination, Zoho.com). Office 2.0 will help to remind us and highlight how the world is changing no matter what the dinosaurs of yore keep saying. Yes, you do need software: your browser... everything else businesses can get on-line, we hope at Zoho.
See you at the Office 2.0 conference!
Rodrigo
[...] SaaS and that into the medium term we’ll have hybrid cloud and on premises stuff. Heck even Zoho agrees with you. But what you don’t seem to be getting is that the continued use of this term [...]
[...] SaaS and that into the medium term we’ll have hybrid cloud and on premises stuff. Heck even Zoho agrees with you. But what you don’t seem to be getting is that the continued use of this term [...]
[...] was a little surprised when I saw this post by Rodrigo over on the Zoho blog. The title struck me as a little strange coming from someone who [...]
[...] was a little surprised when I saw this post by Rodrigo over on the Zoho blog. The title struck me as a little strange coming from someone who [...]
By Dan D. Gutierrez
CEO of HostedDatabase.comMy firm launched the web's first Database-as-a-Service offering in 1999, a time when few software products were in the cloud. Although we believed then and still believe now that having on-demand software is an important option for businesses to consider, we don't hold that it should completely replace on-premise software. Both delivery models can coexist quite well together.
By Dan D. Gutierrez
CEO of HostedDatabase.comMy firm launched the web's first Database-as-a-Service offering in 1999, a time when few software products were in the cloud. Although we believed then and still believe now that having on-demand software is an important option for businesses to consider, we don't hold that it should completely replace on-premise software. Both delivery models can coexist quite well together.