Sift Media's 2008 Software Satisfaction Awards were a triumph for several software as a service providers who didn't exist when the scheme first started in 2006.
KashFlow, winner of the 2007 web-based accounting category narrowly missed out on the 2008 prize, but beat Sage, QuickBooks and MYOB in the small business accounting category. In the CRM categories, NetSuite won the mid-range and enterprise CRM categories, while online provider Really Simple Systems won the SME prize.
Geoff Burch, founder of the online Octopus HR service that won the mid-range HR award was surprised to be honoured in the company's third year in existence. "The SaaS model works well. You can develop quickly, test and deploy something in no time. You don't have to wait six months," he explained.
"We've got some extremely happy clients. You have to with software as a service, because if they're not happy, they'll stop paying you and go somewhere else."
More than 5,900 users completed the online survey that forms the basis of the Software Satisfaction Awards. One defeated on-premise developer referred to the "Amazon effect" as an explanation for the SaaS generation's strong showing this year.
The results gave some support to this view. The web-hosted accounting software category was the most closely fought, with just 0.06 of a point (on a scale of 4) separating the shortlisted nominess. The contenders in this category - e-conomic, Xero, Liquid Accounts and Pearl Office - were all relatively young companies that qualified for the new BASDA-sponsored Newcomer of the Year category. But they were beaten to the prize by on-demand performance management and analytics developer Adaptive Planning.
Adaptive competes against the business software industry's giants - SAP, IBM and Oracle - but still managed to triple its UK customer base during the past 10 months. While it failed to achieve the 5% market share needed to win the full BI award, Adaptive Planning is already looking like a strong contender for next year.
On our sister site AccountingWEB.co.uk, former BASDA CEO Dennis Keeling questioned whether accountants were willing to embrace Cloud computing in the current economic climate. The SaaS model is great for discrete applications like CRM, but is unsuitable for financial systems which rely on feeds from applications such as sales order processing, invoicing, purchasing and payroll, he argued.
"The market at the moment is for specialist add-ons that will integrate with existing legacy systems without disturbing the status-quo," said Keeling. "The idea of holding key financial data remotely still sends accountants hearts' into palpitations."
Voting in this year's Software Satisfaction survey confirmed the accounting profession's cautious attitude to the cloud. More than half the mid-range HR users were running online systems, and three-quarters of those who participated in the talent management section did so. Six out of 10 SME CRM users had on-demand systems and more than one-third of respondents in the mid-range and enterprise CRM categories were SaaS users. In contrast, the number of online accounting software users made up 16% of the accounting & finance sample.
Finance is the nerve centre through which data needs to travel if it is going to benefit business performance. The 2008 Software Satisfaction Awards confirm that the Business Cloud has reached an important tipping point and the finance function is likely to be the target for the industry's next big marketing drive. Next year's voting will provide a good opportunity to assess the progress being made.
Post new Comment