Software as a Service
April 17, 2009
Software as a service book publishing software solution offers book publishers unique advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages
- SAS means that you need to spend less money upfront. You pay a monthly fee per user.
- SAS can significantly reduce your IT expenses by eliminating the need to purchase and manage additional servers.
- With a SAS offering the vendor assumes responsiblity for software updates and data-backups.
Disadvantages
- The long term cost may be higher that purchasing the software, especially for publishers with lots of users.
- If the vendor’s system or your internet connection goes down your system goes down too.
- The vendor has possession of your data and the software. If they or their hosting services goes under you may lose access to your data.
- SAS is not offered by all vendors.
When we evaluate hosted solutions we look for;
a. Mirrored hosting at financially stable multiple Tier 3 hosting centers.
b. References that demonstrate minimal downtime for the hosting service.
c. Option to store accessible copies of the datafiles and program files at the publishers site or at a software escrow service. This protect the publisher in the unlikely event that the vendor goes under.
