A visit to the dentist, but the pain is all theirs

Yesterday evening part of one of my back teeth broke. No pain, thankfully, but a prompt visit to the dentist required.

Making an appointment this morning was not easy. "The system is down" I was told. Although a somewhat vague assertion, I think we could all guess that this meant that the computerised appointment and practice management software was unavailable to the staff due to a technical fault.

Eventually, I was told to turn up at 11:00 and wait until someone could fit me in.

I was quite content in the waiting room as I had the latest version of The Economist to read on my Android app. But I did notice the sighs of exasperation coming regularly from behind the counter. I also had to listen to the same explanations and apologies being endlessly repeated to other patients as they came in.

After a short while, I spotted a perspiring young man almost running up the stairs carrying a large black aluminium box. "That'll be the server" I mentally noted. Whatever, it was not back online by the time I had returned to the waiting room after my treatment. Exasperation was still the mood of the day.

To bring my little story to a conclusion, when I offered my debit card to pay, the girl told me that they were unable to process cards while "the computers were down". Since I had rushed into town and was not carrying cash, I left with the promise to pay next week instead (which of course I will).

Driving home, I pondered how things could have been so different for my dentists.

They clearly had an on-premise server, running installed software over an old-school, wired LAN. They also, clearly, had no on-site technical support staff (why would they?) and therefore needed to rely on a third party company to respond to their emergency and fix the problem for them.

If only they had been using a SaaS appointment and practice management service. No need for on-premise hardware, software or expertise then - instead experts and a controlled environment in the cloud. In this scenario "the system is down" becomes "we have lost our internet connection" - something altogether more manageable and easily fixed.

As for me not being able to pay by card, there are solutions out there that allow for the taking of credit card payments using the mobile phone network. And Barclays in the UK announced yesterday their new Pingit service, which should accelerate the use of mobile payments everywhere.

The technology exists to have prevented the pain and suffering in my dentist's office today, had they chosen to adopt it. Perhaps, following this experience they will.

For once though, it was nice not to be the one on the receiving end of the pain and suffering.

KashFlow gets new clothes for the party

Online accounting software provider KashFlow launched a new marketing website and logo design yesterday, in what really amounts to a revamp of its corporate image.

The traditional colour scheme has been retained but toned down and made more business-like in my opinion - the pink is less, well, "girly", and the blue less "baby blue". The new logo is tighter and cleaner and just seems more substantial somehow.

In my opinion this represents a substantial step forward and statement of intent.

KashFlow is in the vanguard of new cloud accounting software providers in the UK, together with Xero and FreeAgent. However, I have always felt that the other two players have presented a better corporate image: somehow appearing more serious. Clearly, appearances can be deceptive and KashFlow is a very serious business, but the fact is the old corporate style and presentation lacked somehow.

From yesterday, that (mis)perception has been dispelled.

After recently sourcing funding for expansion, KashFlow seem to be, for the short-term at least, in a position to slug things out with their better financed rivals - after years of punching above their weight.

Yesterday's revamp looks like being the start of interesting times at KashFlow.

Does size matter for business SaaS adoption?

I just read The Cloud and Why Installed Software Isn’t Going Away on the Software Advice website.

It's a good article, which applies some common sense to the hype surrounding all things "Cloud" at the moment. I thought I agreed with much of what James Colgan says but then it struck me that we can't view "businesses" as one, homogenous whole. I think small, owner-managed businesses and larger, enterprise businesses are very different markets for SaaS vendors.

For starters, much of the on-premise software used by smaller businesses is consumer software. It's the likes of Microsoft Office, Outlook or Photoshop. These tools are now available, in various forms, as SaaS products - often free of charge. Small businesses are unlikely to be "power users" of the software they use, so even if online alternatives have less functionality they will still be good enough.

Even where small businesses do use non-consumer software, such as accounting products like Sage or QuickBooks, these are relatively low-investment, shrink-wrapped software purchases. With little investment in them, making a change to a Saas alternative is not a big deal.

Larger businesses may also embrace online alternatives but are more likely to retain the need for desktop versions because they use the advanced functions of the software and require more fine-grained control over settings and options. Additionally, they may well have a host of other applications that interact with their consumer software - Microsoft Word and Excel typically - and these interactions only work at the on-premise level.

Secondly, small businesses tend to have simpler business models, with more basic administration and logistics processes. The work they do will also likely be less complex technically than might be the case for larger businesses. If a business is developing a new drug, or undertaking complex modelling, I argue it is more likely (not in every case I admit) that it is an enterprise not a small business.

This means that the computational speed and power that, currently, only on-premise software can provide is mainly needed by large businesses.

Finally, small, owner-managed businesses can be more nimble and decisive when it comes to changing software products or delivery models. In particular, an owner-manager can quckly assess risk and do so without the worries and constraints of corporate responsibility to other stakeholders. The small business can make changes, and reverse them if needed, with much less risk and cost than an enterprise.

So, for the reasons outlined above, I think SaaS software is, and will continue to be, much more successful in gaining adoption by small businesses. But for larger, enterprise businesses, on-premise software will, indeed, be around for a long time yet.