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Why Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is Better than Traditional Software Transcript
Introduction
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to you about our new Software-as-a-Service model
and the benefits it can bring your company.
What is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)?
In the last few years, as the Internet has grown more powerful, a new and improved software model
has emerged, giving companies access to business applications at a just a fraction of the cost of
traditional software and removing a majority of the hassles as well. Software-as-a-Service is
simply a way of delivering software over the Internet, in a much more user-friendly, scalable,
secure and cost-effective way. It has completely changed the way companies run software and
everyone is benefiting. Let’s spend just a few minutes looking at this new model.
Old Way: Customer Owns the Problem
In the past, when a company wanted to leverage the power of an important software
application across their business they had to spend a lot of money to make it work.
In addition to buying the software, they would need to purchase special hardware,
they would need to hire IT specialists to set up that hardware, they would need to
manage custom integrations, spend a lot of time and money maintaining and upgrading
the software, occasionally replacing hardware, and of course, they would need to
find a place to store it all. This “on-premise” computing model was incredibly
expensive and painful for businesses and it often led to an unreliable patchwork
of old software systems that grew harder and harder to maintain over time.
Inefficiencies Multiplied Across Many Companies
To make matters much worse in the old on-premise model, each and every customer
has a separate installation of the software on-site at their company, multiplying
all of the inefficiencies and costs across the entire universe of customers.
SaaS Gives ALL Companies Access to Just One Efficiently Run Application
The SaaS model gives every company access to just one application that is flexible
enough for everyone to customize to their specific needs. It’s a much more
efficient model that gives the software vendor the ability to innovate the
application at a much faster rate and it significantly lowers the cost to each
customer.
The Power of Sharing
Think of it like a giant office building with many businesses sharing the costs
like hardware, security, maintenance and optimization, but each company has the
ability to customize their part of the software to meet their unique business
needs.
The SaaS World: Ultimate Efficiency
So instead of this [old complicated software you have to update]--In the new
SaaS world, you have this: The vendor takes care of everything for you. Companies
can let go of all the headaches and cost of managing on-premise software and rely on
the vendor to do all of the work. The provider has a very big advantage that enables
them to do it better and more cost effectively than most companies like yours can.
That advantage comes from “economies of scale”. Think about Replicon for example.
Instead of supporting just the users at one specific company, Replicon can afford to
make a bigger investment in an infrastructure to support all 1.5 million users across
more than 7,300 companies. And because the investment is made on a bigger scale, Replicon
can invest in the best data centers and the best hardware and security available to ensure
the application works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
SaaS is Popular and Growing Quickly
Because this SaaS model has been so successful, a new breed of SaaS companies like
Salesforce.com, Taleo, Omniture, NetSuite and RightNow have quickly emerged as the as
the fastest growing software companies in the world and products like Google Apps,
which is already used by more than 2 million businesses are quickly replacing expensive
traditional software solutions.
In fact, Gartner, the world’s leading IT research and advisory company, says that 77%
of companies are expanding their SaaS deployments and 37% of businesses plan to eliminate
traditional software entirely in 2010.
Hidden Cost of Traditional Software
The efficiency of the SaaS model translates into very big cost savings for companies.
There is a misconception that in the long run it will be cheaper for a company to “buy”
on-premise software, but a tremendous amount of research from technology experts like
Forrester and Gartner shows this isn’t the case. The vast majority of costs involved
with running business software are hidden, but very real. The obvious software license
and maintenance fees are just a small portion of the costs to a company.
- Purchasing dedicated servers and the operating systems and replacing them
every 2-3 years on average
- Purchasing database software and licenses
- Maintaining those servers, operating systems and databases
- Staffing appropriate levels of IT to deal with support and ensure reliability and
security and managing all of the upgrades
That is where the real costs of running on-premise software really add up.
To show you the savings you’d get if you move to SaaS we invite you to use our Total
Cost of Ownership calculator using your company’s actual numbers and we’re happy to walk
through that with you. You’ll see that in both the short and long run, the cost of SaaS is
much lower. Research firm, Hurwitz and Associates, found that it’s about 77% less for
companies to run SaaS versus on-premise software.
Advantages to SaaS
In addition to costs, there are a number of other advantages to switching to SaaS with
Replicon. The biggest is that you reduce your risk significantly with SaaS. Let’s take a
look.
Security is Better With SaaS
One big challenge companies face when they manage on-premise software is security.
Replicon hosts the SaaS platform at one of the most secure data centers on the planet,
the Bell Enterprise Data Center. The application is encrypted, monitored and backed up
daily. We go through a very rigorous security audit each year and we are SaS 70 certified
so you can be sure your application is secure.
24x7 Availability (99.5% Uptime)
We also make sure your software is up and running so you don’t have any lost productivity.
Visit our
website at any time to see
our uptime record.
We guarantee a 99.5% service level and we will credit your account for major service
disruptions, if any were to happen. But our goal is to prevent that from happening and
our record demonstrates our success in this area.
SaaS Model is Flexible for Customers
The Replicon SaaS model also gives you tremendous flexibility so you can adjust to your
business needs over time and reduce risk even further.
- You can choose from flexible contract terms, month to month, annual or multi-year
terms depending on your need and
- Since it’s a subscription service, it is considered an Operating Expense not a Capital
Expenditure.
- Replicon’s licensing model is also designed to grow or shrink with your company.
You decide how many licenses you need and you only pay for licenses you use and
- If you have other systems like accounting or payroll software you want to integrate
with Replicon, we offer a number of out-of-box integrations with popular applications like
QuickBooks, ADP and Microsoft Project and
- We also have Integration Specialists who can create custom integrations to other systems.
You OWN YOUR Data. (period!)
It’s important to note that if you ever decide Replicon is not the right solution for you.
You will be able to take your data with you. We believe strongly, that it’s your data and you
should own it completely. We give you export functionality to extract all your data and we
will work with you to make sure you get what you need if you ever decide to make a change.
Traditional Software is Failing Fast
One other important way to reduce risk for your company is to choose software partners who are
viable in the long run. SaaS software companies have a very clear advantage here. In the
traditional on-premise model, software companies need to spend a lot of time and money installing
and maintaining a version of the software at each customer site.
Over time, the software company will be faced with supporting a number of different versions of
the application across their customer base. This is incredibly inefficient and eventually breaks
the software provider’s ability to provide adequate support and innovate quickly on a single
platform.
More Than 1,500 Replicon Customers Are Happy with SaaS
More than 1,500 Replicon customers are benefits from our SaaS platform. We'd like to add you to
this growing list and help you get all of the benefits from our SaaS platform today.
Upgrading to SaaS is Free & Hassle-Free
It’s very easy to upgrade. Just let your Account Manager know you’re interested and they will
walk you through a smooth transition. They’ll discuss any special integrations or challenges
you might have and map out a plan to avoid any disruptions to your current processes. It’s very
easy and it takes just a few minutes.
Contact Us for a Free SaaS Upgrade
To help you further, Replicon is offering a very special offer. You’ll get a free upgrade to
the SaaS platform so you don’t incur any additional fees and you’ll get a preferred customer
discount on any additional licenses you might need. Just call or e-mail us today to let your
account manager know you’re interested at:
1-877-762-6519 (North America)
+800 6622 5192 (Outside North America)
E-mail:
sales@replicon.com
Thank you for watching this special presentation.
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