SaaS accounting mature?
July 17, 2008
In his weekly email newsletter I received today, John Stokdyk of AccountingWEB makes the statement:
I’ve made a little hay myself with claims about the ‘new wave’ of mid-range software as a service systems that provide more than just online cashbooks, but after reading Nigel’s views on Xero, e-conomic and Liquid Accounts, it’s clear that the online accounting market is maturing.
Right up to the end of last year, John was arguing that AW’s readership were not that interested in SaaS accounting. Now he calls it as maturing. Both statements are incorrect. As we know from research carried out by Access-Accounting and development by CODA (who would not be risking development money) and others, there is demand. But to say it is maturing is ambitious.
There is still much to be done and many of the sytems we are seeing are little more than replacements for existing on-premise applications. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but I prefer to see innovation when new platforms become available. And of course we’re still waiting for the gorilla players - Microsoft, Oracle and Sage to come up with something credible.
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Dennis,
You make a very valid observation and I think it is true of various different Web 2.0/ SaaS applications. The question we must ask is how does the internet change the way we do business and as such how should we design and implement online software that will help in the internet age. I seem to find more and more people now who consider connecting to the internet as normal as turning on their laptop or making a mobile phone call. Being connected is becoming a 24/7 requirement for many people. I agree that this has a long way to go, but I am enjoying watching the innovation that is emerging.
Cheers
Hamish