How online services crush everything

I’m part way through a complex travel schedule. Anything that relieves the pain of organizing flights, hotels, transfers and meetings is a massive bonus. Yesterday I wrote on IT Counts about TripIt and how it helps me solve these problems. I also mentioned ExpenseBay, a service I’ve just started to subscribe to. It allows me to capture expenses in any currency, with receipts photocopied via my iPhone. I had this to say:

Expense Bay has an application that works on the iPhone and, if you’re prepared to pay $100 a year, it connects to Salesforce.com, Intacct and NetSuite! Think about all the integrations you’d need to do if TripIt and its partners were purely deskside applications? It would be a spaghetti soup nightmare. (note: ExpenseBay is US centric but it managed to find my UK bank without difficulty.)

Today I want to mention Appirio, a service developer that works with Salesforce.com. They’re holding an event at Dreamforce. Attendance requires putting your name on ‘the list’ and awaiting an invitation. Once the invitation is received you have to RSVP. At this point, Appirio asks if you want the event added to your calendar. Completing the entire process requires THREE clicks. That’s it.

Can you imagine trying to do all that the manual way? And some people wonder whether SaaS is here to stay or adds value?

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