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Web Application + SaaS = Software Solution for Nonprofits and SMBs
Web Application (Wikipedia definition)
Web application
is an application that is accessed with a Web browser over a network
such as the Internet or an intranet. You could find lots of web
applications on the internet, such as a simple Contact Us form, Blog,
Forum, a complicated CMS (Content Management System).
Web applications bring customers many advantages:
- Sharing - Web application enables many people can share a software from different geographic locations.
- Accessibility -
Internet brings the whole world together, thus web application is
always accessible in the world via a web browser which could be
provided by a desktop, notebook, PDA, cell phone etc. - Usability -
Web application has the heavy end on the server, and the client is just
a common web browser. So the software deployment and maintenance is
limited on the server.
Because of these advantages, companies
from small to large all show their favor to web applications. Large
companies love web application because their remote sites can share
information physically located in the headquarter. Small businesses
love it because they can travel with their web applications and share
them with their partners and co-workers.
Use software as a service (SaaS)
Traditionally,
you buy software from vendors, and they give you a disc or download it,
then you install it on your computer. With the Internet platform, SaaS
is new concept for customers to get software.
Comparing to the traditional software delivery channel, SaaS brings customers many advantages:
- Cost Effectiveness-
Instead of paying the software cost in one time, customers pay monthly
service fee; also customers get the flexibility to cancel the service
anytime. - Sharing Resources-
Many customers share one server (or one server cluster), one IT group.
So customers won't need to buy extra computers, buy softwares, hire IT
professionals, and they are free of computer breakages, virus
affections, and hacker attacks.
Small businesses show more
interests on SaaS, because it makes software more accessible to them.
With very low cost, they can get high quality software.
By Nenest.com
- Nenest's blog
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This is very true...
This concept is very true as setting up small servers in their officies and then managing them in terms of hardware upgrade, software purchase, antivirus, firewall, spam, etc. distracts SME's from their core business.
Out-sourcing such necessary services can releive a small company of many un-necessary headaches. Deploying Google Apps to resolve email related issues is one example in that direction!
saas/webware is a nice
saas/webware is a nice thing, but what happen when you don't have internet connection ? and are your online stored data secured ? about google apps, they are nice but a big part is running client side, using ajax (javascript and XMLHTTP technlogies), and user driven content (aka web 2.0), and there are already some viruses using these technologies security breaches...
crawling the web, i saw an interesting thing on the ultra VNC website (http://www.uvnc.com/), a video showing desktop applications (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint...etc) run in Internet Explorer, without any plugin ! here the link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZRHYW-vCa0