Charles Cooper writes in News.com on the ASP resurgence:
The idea behind hosted applications, where customers essentially rent what they need, is enjoying a comeback in these times of failed expectations and reduced information technology budgets. For many companies, renting software is a lower-risk, attractive option than locking yourself into an expensive single vendor solution.
Salesforce and other like-minded practitioners of applications and content hosting can tell a no-bull story about the benefits they offer customers. Most notably:
– No up-front technology costs.
– Customers don’t need to reassign new IT resources from other projects.
– Chief information officers won’t need to wait months or years before seeing bottom-line benefits.In an interconnected world, that’s huge. What could be easier than paying for bits zapped over the wires? When demand changes, so does cost. No fuss, no muss.
The optimism needs to be tempered, though: “Folks in the computer business tend to stick with what’s comfortable, even though a growing number of them are opting for the subscription model. How big all this will become boils down to a single question in these post-bubble times: Are IT buyers ready to take chances?”
