This recent thread on The Business of Software forum caught my attention. It’s an interesting discussion but it was more interesting say 5+ years ago before SaaS products had really taken off (and proven themselves…).
I get the shakes when I think about going back to using an email client like Outlook instead of Google Apps. Connecting to the mail server wasn’t fun even when the mail server was located in the same room, but when you were travelling overseas and connecting to the mail server via a VPN it was simply an awful experience and frequently unusable.
Now with Google Apps I can connect to my email from whichever device I’m using with an Internet or 3G/4G connection. It’s seamless and I have 15 GB of emails within a few seconds reach. It’s hard to beat that.
SaaS products aren’t for everyone and they don’t work for every product, but in 2011 you really shouldn’t need the *benefits* of SaaS products explained to you. You can decide that they aren’t for you because of the lack of control and privacy concerns, but the actual benefits of these products to people who are more relaxed about the loss of control and privacy should be pretty clear.