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To: Doren who wrote (861)	2/15/2012 6:52:05 PM
From: sm1th	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1685

So one quality that would be very advantageous for an SaaS company would be the ability for customers to customize their desktop experience. The desktop experience is much less important than the underlying business processes. To make a bad analogy to cars, the desktop experience is the color of the paint or interior. The underlying business processes are the engine transmission, and suspension. One aspect of the SAAS business model is that in order to keep their support costs reasonable, they must have all clients on the same release of the core software. When they release a new version, they update all hosted customers. The more that they allow customers to customize the applications, the harder it is to maintain this model. It comes down to a fundamental tradeoff on where a business thinks its competitive advantage exists. For non-critical systems, the SAAS model may reduce costs in non-critical areas. Payroll has been outsourced for most companies for years. For the systems that define a company's competitive advantage, they are better off with in house highly customized solutions. IMHO.