13.10.2009

Software on Demand: Who Offers What?

By: Christiane Stagge

With software as a service, companies rent software over the Internet and only pay for the applications they actually use. Let’s take a look at SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce.com. Who offers which on-demand software, for what type of user, and at what price?

Software as a service (SaaS) is a model whereby companies don’t have their industry software physically installed on site, but instead rent it – or subscribe to it – for a particular period of time. There’s no need for expensive hardware. All that’s required is a PC and an Internet connection. The advantage is that you only pay for the applications you actually use, you can add modules or omit them, and you can save costs and avoid lengthy implementation projects.

SaaS was one of the main talking points at this year’s CRM-expo in the German city of Nuremberg. Because price models are flexible and implementation is straightforward, on-demand solutions particularly appeal to small companies in the service industry who want to use software to map their customer relationships. Although many companies instinctively feel reticent about outsourcing customer data, the providers all promise high security.

SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce.com all offer subscription-based software. At the CRM-expo, the three software companies presented their on-demand products for customer relationship management:

Next Page: Salesforce and Oracle

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