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Cost Effective - SaaS Benefits

The Advantages of Buying Software as a Service (SaaS)

There are several ways to buy software for your business.  myServiceForce.Com uses a seat license method so that small businesses can get “enterprise level” software at a price they can afford and without the costly responsibility of maintaining the software. Before looking at the software by the seat in more detail let’s review the normal lifecycle cost of a software asset.

Software generally has a lifecycle as a result of changes and updates to the software dictated by the business process it serves, new features that become available, changes in the hardware on which it is to run, and manufacturer dictated obsolescence. Owning software requires attention to all of these factors in order to get the maximum return on the investment.

Costs of owning software include purchase price, installation costs including equipment upgrades, and ongoing maintenance costs which include manufacturer charges for maintaining the software (fixes and patches), support programs, and upgrade costs for new features. Finally, internal costs for administrating the software need to be considered.

Enterprise software, software that is purchased and run in a company’s infrastructure is sold in two general methods. One is designed for the software to have a relatively long life cycle and the other is designed for frequent, often annual replacement. In the first, a company sells a version of its software for a relatively high entrance cost and then promises to maintain and enhance the software on a regular basis in return for an annual maintenance fee, typically 15-20% of the purchase price.  Depending upon where the product is in its general life cycle, one can expect to get no less than 3 years utilization and as much as 5-7.

The other enterprise model provides new versions of software, often annually, in lieu of large upfront costs and maintenance fee. This is popular with small businesses which can buy popular business software like Intuit's Quick Books, or Microsoft small business products at a relatively low cost of entry. The downside is that the software will be out of date in a year and often unsupported within 3 years. The result is that companies need to upgrade their software frequently which can result in need for new hardware and additional support costs as well as a new learning curve.

What's new? Buying software on a seat license basis, called Software as a Service (SaaS, the latest buzz-phrase). While not always the case, most often this involves buying software that is being run remotely ("hosted") and shared by many companies. While this may seem somewhat insecure, the fact is that today's software can and is designed with full security of customer data and is usually far more robust than a small business could afford. The second characteristic is that there is only one charge for the software, usually monthly, that includes virtually all operating and maintenance costs including feature upgrades and support.

The advantages to this, especially for small businesses, are many. First, they get the latest and best business software at a cost they can afford. Next, they pay for only for what they use, 1 seat per user, adapting easily to normal expansions and contractions of a business cycle. Third, they get the benefit of top notch technology and services to insure the reliability and security of your business asset.

myServiceForce.Com is a perfect example of the best of all worlds, a great business asset at a cost you can afford combined with solid support and data security.