| The future of SaaS
Microsoft
made a very generous offer to buy Yahoo. The idea is that this
should considerably improve Microsoft's market share in Internet
related markets and make it a more credible competitor for
Google. Beyond the seemingly obvious advantages of buying out a
competitor, what can Microsoft gain from this venture? What can
Yahoo offer?
Yahoo has considerable software-as-a-service (SaaS) experience.
Microsoft
has beeing trying to break into the SaaS market for years, now, but
it's been difficult going for them. Their experience and
expertise lie in a different direction. If they can obtain Yahoo
and its associated expertise, their SaaS efforts will receive a
definite boost. Yahoo has a product mentality that Microsoft, so
far, has lacked.
Is it really all about Google? Not quite.
Microsoft
has invested a great deal in its online presence, most notably through
launching MSN and obtaining Hotmail. They want to compete with
Google on this front. Yahoo is a very good way to help close the
gap between the two. But the SaaS knowhow that comes with the
deal will help Microsoft across the board.
The people in Redmond
are not interested in SaaS as a new fad to explore. They have
come to the realization that SaaS is the future through their
customers. Especially small and medium sized businesses are not
interested in spending thousands of dollars on entire software
suites. Almost everyone uses MS Word and Outlook regularly, but
how many do more than barely glance at Publisher, PowerPoint, or
Ecxel? The majority of people who have Microsoft Office installed
on their computer use, or even need, less than half of the software on
which money was spent.
Ask yourself, do you really need MS Word
in its current form or would you be happier with some kind of MS Word
'Lite'? A bloated word processor that is supposed to do almost
everything versus one which offered you nothing but your basic word
processing needs? No more hunting past dozens of options to make
sure you're clicking the one you really need.
If the
Microsoft-Yahoo deal goes through this may become a reality quite
soon. Instead of buying an entire software suite for hundreds of
dollars you could access only the software you need for a monthly fee,
or perhaps pay per use. Just as importantly, you would not longer
need to make sure you have downloaded all the latest updates and
security patches for your software. This would all become
Microsoft's sole responsibility.
Naturally this would be a huge
boost for SaaS as well. Microsoft is a household name. If
they begin to sell their best known products through
software-as-a-service, it would become a normal concept to the average
consumer.
Soon, people may no longer be wondering, what is Saas? The question, instead, will be, why aren't you using it?
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