The only remaining desktop app regret I have as I sit in my browser writing this on my iMac is no longer being able to quickly and easily jump to Viso on Windows to draw out that diagram that could save a 1,000 words of descriptions, and let's face it drawing in Google Docs is still a bit lame. This online drawing tool from Gliffy is helping me get over my loss.
Very cool. Thanks to Alexey for pointing me in this direction.
Interesting approach to SaaS pricing - pay for the value you receive based upon your usage of the product. I like this. It truly represents pay as you go which is what I believe all pricing schemes should be based on. We are all sick to death of contracts. Bell? Rogers? Did you hear that. Now take it one step further, you can sign up, and you won't be charged that monthly recurring fee unless you actually use the product. Who wouldn't hesitate to sign up to do that?
"Ashu Roy, eGain's CEO, explained in an e-mail response the success metric his company uses to determine when and how much a customer should ultimately pay. "Success is judged by usage, [meaning] the number of self-service sessions conducted by their end-customers each month on the clien's Web site. The more the usage, the more the success,""
via A SaaS app that's free unless it delivers value | Architecture - InfoWorld.
One year ago it costs us about $5,000 per year per developer for the software operating system, development environment, tools, MSDN subscriptions, etc. etc. We then changed our viewpoint and focused on leveraging cloud computing and the open source community.
Our costs today per developer for software are $0. Zero dollars for a developer software environment per year.
Combine this with the elimination of server hardware and software, IT infrastructure support and maintenance, moving from a large office environment to a virtual work place with a drop in as-you-need-it office, and leveraging free video conferencing and the savings are off the chart.
The creation of intellectual capital is becoming cheaper and cheaper.
Our software as a service digital signage solution company - Rise Vision - provided the platform for Pei Wei to roll 160+ locations on 500 displays in under 5 months! Yes, I am biased, but nice work all round!
I hear it all the time "Google Docs doesn't do tables as well as MS Word", "Google Spreadsheets doesn't highlight the cells in an equation like Excel", and the list goes on and on and they are right. But.
They didn't weigh the ROI on collaboration when they started complaining about functionality. It is pretty rare that we work alone these days. We leverage teams and the diversity that they bring to make the result greater than the sum of the parts. An online shared doc is an instant collaboration machine with no version control or collation nightmare and no waiting for someone to finish before the next person jumps in. It leverages the crowd.
Look beyond the features that are lacking and calculate the ROI on collaboration before you forgo cloud based documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Byron Darlison