Data on Demand (continued)
equipped with a browser to gain access to critical data.
"There's no longer any need to go through the hassle of setting up employees to work through a virtual private network (VPN) to gain remote access, since all of the remote data resides online," says Eric Berridge, co-founder and principal of the Bluewolf Group, an IT consulting firm in New York, N.Y., specializing in helping enterprises move to on-demand applications. Bluewolf derives most of its revenues from implementations of Salesforce, an on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) application, and Open Air, a hosted, professional services automation (PSA) solution.
Instead of paying hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars upfront to install on-premise software, companies pay hosted applications monthly subscription fees. Furthermore, these fees can be deducted as operating expenses rather than amortized as capital expenditures.
Hosted applications also result in reduced risk. Most on-premises application installations fail during an implementation process typically so bug-ridden that it can take years to complete. The time an on-demand service requires to get required functionality customized and ready to use is just weeks -- or even days. And if on demand solutions don't work, the customer can simply walk away -- no strings attached.
Earlier versions of SaaS often foundered on the issue of security. Companies were uncomfortable with the notion that their information crown jewels were residing on someone else's servers. But as more time passes without data breaches at on-demand vendors, companies are becoming infinitely more reassured about the safety of their data. "Security is a non-issue as far as we're concerned," says Perez. (article continues)
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