Explaining Software plus Services

re: Explaining Software plus Services

Allister Frost — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:04:05 GMT

Steve - nice explanation. But, as you've demonstrated, it's not that we sometimes over-complicate things here at Microsoft; we under-simplify.

re: Explaining Software plus Services

Josh — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:33:45 GMT

Actually I don't really think its a case of you not explaining the concept of S+S clearly enough... I think most people get the idea now (maybe not back in 2005 but definitely now).

What people don't understand is why MS is trying to prevent the inevitable, protect its monopoly, take away our rights and struggle to remain relevant today =P Okay thats just me being stupid, but its also exactly what I see around the blogosphere on a daily basis. All that "Chrome is the next OS" crap.

Personally I totally agree with what you said, Microsoft is taking the best of the web and the best of the desktop and creating products successfully bridging the two. Suggesting that one day EVERYTHING will be done online is either unlikely as you mentioned, or a very, very long way off.

Microsoft is the only company which seems to have a vision that suits how I want to use a computer... with desktop and device software all fully integrated and synchronized together by online services...

Sure web services are good and handy for some things, I use Google Docs for quick and easy collaberation, but I sure as hell would never wanna replace Word 2007 with it.

What a joke.

re: Explaining Software plus Services

Travis Warren — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:57:48 GMT

I think you're missing the point of SaaS. I think it's renting software vs. buying a perpetual license and paying annual maintenance. Owning a software license is completely overrated! I want to pay for software like i pay for services (i.e. power). I don't want to own it. The internet has enabled this, but fundamentally it's not what the movement is all about.

re: Explaining Software plus Services

steve clayton — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:53:18 GMT

Travis

I'm not dismissing SaaS as a *purchasing approach* at all. It makes a great deal of sense for those companies who don't want to run their own IT, prefer a utility based approach to IT and want to shift CAPEX to OPEX. We're offering SaaS solutions now through partners who offer hosted Exchange and our own Microsoft Online offer so I'm definitely not dismissing it.

What I'm suggesting here is that SaaS as the only choice of *delivery mechanism* runs in to issues when you want to use where you don't have connectivity or you want to use the local capabilities of a device.

Steve Jobs did a terrific explanation of this at All Things D this year when he explained why they deliver Google Maps as a client application on iPhone rather than browser delivered. He stated that not using the local client software would have meant a much degraded experience for the user.

Perhaps I didn't separate the purchase experience from the delivery experience well enough so hope this helps to rectify?

Steve

re: Explaining Software plus Services

Travis Warren — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:32:32 GMT

Steve,

Got it. That's clear.

SaaS is more then just "delivery".

Thanks for responding,

Travis