I’ve known for a short while that Gary Turner would be taking the top slot at Xero UK. Gary and I have been good pals the last few years. After he left Pegasus, he went to Microsoft, a safe if less than cutting edge choice. Gary is the kind of person who likes to make things happen. He was an early entrant into the blog scene and uses Twitter to pass on some of the more arcane things he finds. Gary is also a passable guitarist andnot half bad photographer. He’s also incredibly good at telling a compelling story, something that is vital to the saas market.
When we caught up last week, it was obvious he is looking forward to the challenge and during our ensuing conversation had this to say:
“I see SaaS going through at least two phases, each with separate sets of benefits to customers and vendors.
Firstly, the classic SaaS launch phase; brought about by its new economic model and the super-efficient manner in which it is accessed by its users and centrally updated and extended by vendors. These benefits are alone significant and responsible for driving the initial take up and adoption.
But that’s not enough in the long run. Where’s the differentiation between SaaS vendors who pitch average to good products but over rely on the SaaS argument?
The really interesting phase will be when SaaS vendors who, unlike classic runtime software developers, unburdened from the onerous responsibilities of maintaining and tending to millions of lines of old source code over multiple versions, start to really drive up unprecedented levels of innovation, new feature development, integration with banks and other service providers, etc.I think we’ll see smart SaaS solutions overtake their classic counterparts in capability pretty quickly as they compete for differentiation and market share. It’s going to be fun!”
A good catch for Xero. Good luck with the new position which he takes up in a few weeks’ time.
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