This week the Intellect SaaS Group launched a 20 page director's guide explaining "The business case for Software as a Service" with, hopefully, a minimum of jargon and technical detail. It should definitely be of interest to IT Counts members who want to get to grips with SaaS and the Cloud topic. The link to download the document is below, but let me explain some of the background.
The group was triggered over a year ago by some of the online accounting players ignoring we were competitors and meeting informally down the pub on a regular basis swapping ideas on how we could pool some resources and promote the topic of Software as a Service and online accounting solutions together. The group was started by Hamish Edwards of Xero, and he invited along Duane Jackson of Kashflow, Chris Poll of Validis, Mark Davies then of e-conomic, Dave Turner of CODA/FinancialForce.com and myself on behalf of Twinfield. We soon decided to formalize our group under Intellect, the body that runs a number of national technology, software and telecommunications trade groups. The topic broadened out from just accounting to cover all applications of Software as a Service. Our aim is to promote the use of SaaS in business and to government, and to act as a focus for anyone interested in the topic.
Our first deliverable is a 20 page guide to SaaS. There were over 20 contributors to the text, from the vendors mentioned above, larger companies like Microsoft and SunGard, and two lawyers who were keen to cover contractual aspects and make sure we didn't overstate the case anywhere. At one point it looked a bit of a mess - the proverbial camel designed by a committee, but it has been thoroughly re-written by a professional editor (funded by our friends at SunGard), so that we're now proud of the end result.
I'm the acting Chair of the Intellect SaaS Group, as Hamish has headed back to New Zealand. Here are the slides I used to introduce the document on Wednesday. At the launch event I moderated a panel discussion with two of the contributors - Chris Higgins of SunGard and Dr. Richard Sykes, as well as an independent view from Martin Atherton of Freeform Dynamics, an analyst firm who know the Cloud topic well but weren't involved in writing the document.
In the guide we've covered the basics, compared and contrasted SaaS solutions to the traditional "on premise" way of installing and managing your own software and infrastructure, highlighted the legal aspects to consider, and given a checklist of the questions you should ask a prospective SaaS provider. To download a PDF version of the document go to this page on the Intellect SaaS Group's website, or make contact if you want a hard copy. I hope you find it useful, and I would love to hear some feedback.