Who should consider SaaS?


If you are confused whether any of the three components of SaaS are beneficial to you, consider the following questions:

What servers and IT infrastructure do you already have? One of the most significant benefits of Cloud-based Hosting is the saving from not buying all the necessary hardware. If you already have a suitable server and back-up server for running Enterprise by HansaWorld, this might push you towards the on-site model.

How old are your client computers and the operating systems on them? Native clients for Enterprise by HansaWorld will only run on modern operating systems. If you are trying to retain older hardware, web clients may be your only option. Equally there are sometimes operating systems that HansaWorld has yet to support, and again web clients offer a way to implement on these operating systems - and the devices on which they run.

What is the speed and availability of the internet in your locations? Browser clients run slower than native clients. Cloud-based hosting makes you completely reliant on the internet, which will not suit locations with poor internet availability.

How much customisation is likely to be involved in your implementation? The more you are reliant on customisation, the greater the additional services required to maintain your implementation, and hence the greater the risk when managing these files in the cloud.

Do you have third-party applications that need to be interfaced to your Enterprise by HansaWorld installation? While it is possible to mix on-site third-party applications with a Cloud-based Hosted Enterprise by HansaWorld server, this significantly complicates the implementation - and therefore there is a weighting towards choosing an on-site implementation of Enterprise.

What are your financing needs? Monthly fees give predictability to your cash-flow, but more importantly involve significantly lower tie-up of your valuable capital. Particularly if you don't have significant available capital, monthly subscription may be your only appropriate option.

How do you perceive risks relating to the security of your data? Your attitude to the risks involved in how you deploy an Enterprise by HansaWorld implementation will be dependent on several factors. The rise of SaaS generally is reducing customer reluctance to let data outside of the four walls of your company, but currently it's still the case that the majority of customers prefer control of their own server by their own staff. Data is secured over the internet by different methods depending on whether you use web clients (Secure Socket Layer) or our native clients (proprietary encryption), and there is a small additional cost to that security for web clients - purchasing a certification for SSL.

Who and where are your users? If you have a large number of remote users where you cannot control the device from which they will access the central server, this suggests using web clients. These might include customers, suppliers, sub-contractors, and users in remote locations where the initial client installation is in some way tricky to perform.