SaaS and the Enterprise
October 3, 2011 at 10:37 am 4 comments
I hate desktop software. Every new application is a potential conflict with mission critical software. Then you have the effort of installing and updating. It is a terrible model for the enterprise. Wherever possible I am looking for Software as a Service (SaaS) option.
Adobe has a potentially great service in their CreatePDF SaaS offering (once they add the ability to manipuate PDFs online). The need to create and manipulate PDFs is wide-spread in my organization, but I don’t want to take on the burden of installing Acrobat or some similar app on hundreds of desktops.
Unfortunately Adobe is rolling CreatePDF as a consumer offering. A separate credit card for each use is not a model that works for the enterprise. People like me would be lining up for this service if there were a front-end where our Provisioning team could easily add and remove users and we could receive a quarterly invoice based on the number of users.
I think Adobe is missing the boat. DropBox is another cool app that does not have an enterprise model (box.net seems like a good enterprise alternative).
Entry filed under: Philosophy, web 2.0. Tags: .
1.
Jared Teche | October 3, 2011 at 11:38 am
Drop-box has also had several security breaches which makes me not trust them with any sensitive information.
2.
hospitalcio | October 7, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Great point Jared. A breech of security violation of that magnitude us hard for me to ever get past.
3.
TPD | October 4, 2011 at 8:17 am
If security can be guaranteed, the PDF route can be a cost effective concept for institutions to transfer information to clients anywhere using the SaaS model.
4.
Jonathan Baran | October 6, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Dropbox did create Dropbox Teams (http://www.dropbox.com/teams) which seems to be geared more towards enterprise customers, however I have never used it myself.