Online Services Outage Raises SaaS Questions
Microsoft has just fixed
another
outage of some of its more popular Live services -- the erstwhile Hotmail
and MSN Messenger among them.
When we hear about this kind of incident here at RCPU, we can't help but question
the current viability of Software as a Service for business-critical applications.
OK, sure, we know that Hotmail and MSN Messenger (or whatever they're called
now -- Windows Live something or other) aren't exactly business-critical for
most companies. (In fact, the IM outage might have increased productivity in
a lot of offices.) And we know that Microsoft doesn't make uptime guarantees
for these consumer services the way it would for mission-critical stuff, a point
made by the always wise Scott Bekker, RCP's editor in chief. Furthermore,
we know that when it comes to CRM and ERP, for example, partners, not Microsoft,
are taking on most of the hosting duties -- all of them in the case of hosted
Dynamics ERP.
Still (oh, you were expecting a "But" or a "However," but
we dropped a "Still" on you), even if hosted Web-based e-mail and
hosted enterprise applications don't make for a good apples-to-apples comparison,
huge problems with Hotmail don't exactly instill confidence in partners or IT
folks mulling over the idea of outsourcing important enterprise functions to
a hosted model. Just by coincidence -- and, we admit, the Hotmail outage couldn't
have come at a better time -- we discuss this very issue (specifically, whether
the SaaS model can handle ERP) in the RCP March cover
story.
Now, Salesfoce.com and NetSuite would tell us, quite accurately, that they've
not had anything near the relatively severe problems with uptime that Microsoft
has experienced with Hotmail and IM. And Microsoft itself, we believe (although
this is, admittedly, a bit of an assumption), has a better track record with
hosting business-critical applications than it has with hosting Web-based e-mail.
But SaaS outages of any kind are a bit like distant earthquakes for people who
live near fault lines -- even if they don't happen in your part of the world,
they remind you that you're vulnerable. That's a hurdle, largely psychological,
which SaaS still has to clear when it comes to business-critical applications,
and this week's Hotmail incident might have pushed that hurdle a couple of inches
higher.
Do outages such as the one Microsoft experienced this week make you think twice
about a SaaS model? Expound on your answer at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on February 28, 2008