On-Demand Applications - What I did not say?

It has been sometime since my last post, I was a bit busy with the Re-Implementation Strategies (Actually I wanted it to be the first post on my blog for sometime so that I could get some more ideas!). I was going through the success story of Salesforce.com and found out that it can be attributed to hosting applications. The mid-sized companies which need an IT solution to their business are quick to realize the cost benefits of this On-Demand version of software applications. Remember the post titled “Past, Present and Future of Applications”, I did discuss about the future of ERP industry will most likely be the hosted applications. On-Demand is how we call it! Would you believe it if I told you that I did not know On-Demand was what I was referring to? I’m disappointed at myself! I was under the assumption that, I’ve come up with a brilliant idea. But the reality is I’m not reading all the news! I hate myself for doing that.

But the idea already in existence does not ward me off. After I made the post I knew how to achieve On-Demand (to a certain extent!) but the problem that I knew and did not let know is what I’m going to discuss in this post (Probably, I should have been in marketing!). When a Customer chooses a XYZ’s On-Demand services, his entire IT infrastructure is with XYZ, this makes a move from XYZ to ABC almost impossible. If ABC after certain years comes up with the best possible application architecture and business process the Customer might regret his choice of XYZ applications. This problem is most similar to the one faced by Bigger Customers who have chosen an application (ORACLE/SAP/PeopleSoft/Siebel) which suited their requirements when they bought the applications. I hate this inflexibility, but this is what drives the business of the product vendors (Customers watch out!).

The second issue in choosing an On-Demand service is this, if a large number of Customers are being hosted with a single infrastructure, the Customer looses his freedom of upgrade at HIS pace. Although the architecture change which the On-Demand vendor wants to make to his existing systems would definitely add value to my application, I’ll not enjoy the constraint of moving to the new release at a time when I have my own business issues to take care of. Additional cost which must be incurred might bring my business down.

I’m still searching for answers to these questions in the World Wide Web, will let you know if I find one.

Today morning my friend called me up and told me that Oracle has extended the development plans of PeopleSoft. Read more. I hope my predictions will come true!