Software as a service

According to Alfresco, even though 95% of Fortune 1000 companies have some form of Enterprise Content Management (ECM)/collaboration, less than 10% of the user's in those organisations actually use these technologies on a daily basis.

After having spent the last 4 years delivering these type of systems for clients, I think the main reason this statistic is justified is for the following 3 reasons:

• Cost: Lets face it, ECM/Collaboration doesn't come cheap for large organisations. With most systems charging a CAL (per seat) license, it becomes prohibitively expensive in some cases to roll these systems out to the entire enterprise. So while 95% of Fortune 1000 companies may have some form of ECM/collaboration system, only 10% of users have licenses to use it!
• Complexity: Most enterprise software is complex, not just in terms of what it does, but how it looks and is experienced. The worst offender in my books is IBM, they design software that not only looks ugly, but is way too complicated for most end users to simply start using. When you give user's this type of software, users will always fall back to the lowest common denominator, in most cases - email.
• Change Management: For a lot of projects I've been on, change management is an after thought, not a priority. Organisations spend so much money to develop and roll out the system, but considerably less time communicating with end users and training them to use and understand the benefits the new system.

So how can vendors like ours increase adoption of our products and systems in large organisations to increase ROIs and the success of the end product? For each of these problems I've listed our take on the solution:

• Cost: Most of the current solutions are on-premise systems. This requires a lot of up-front capital expenditure to setup and install all the parts needed to run the new system, and most likely an army of expensive consultants to help with the task. After a 6-12 month period, the system is finally ready for go-live, during this time very few people have actually used or even seen the system. We believe off-premise, or Software-as-a-Service, is the solution to this problem. With no up-front capital expenditure and no waiting period, end users can start using the system in hours or days, not months, and the cost of maintaining and supporting the system long term is reduced.
• Complexity: Most enterprise software vendors are years behind the type of web 2.0 interfaces and features that user's can get for free outside work. Another advantage of Software-as-a-Service is with its quick release cycles, the product is constantly being updated with the latest ideas and features for users so that their system isn't out of date and can constantly improve its usability to end users. Smaller start-ups also have an advantage here, we don't need to lock in requirements and technology 2-3 years ahead of release to ensure a massive team of developers can work together effectively, we can respond and adapt our technology as the landscape changes. All in all, by using the latest "web 2.0" technology, we can make very usable and "enjoyable" software for end users.
• Change Management: Vendors need to do more to help in this area instead of relying solely on the customer or a consultancy to do this. Whether its offering a package with expert change management support for your product, or simply having all the pre-prepared materials/methodology for customers to easily understand and perform this important task, there is a lot more that could be done in this area. While we haven't decided which route we will be taking, we definitely will offer some type of support to ensure effective change management - and more importantly - high adoption of our product!

If 90% of your organisation isn't using the new collaboration system you've bought effectively, not only is that a waste of money, that is also a major barrier to getting effective collaboration across your enterprise. This is just a few of our ideas on addressing the adoption issue. If you have any more please leave them below.

It is with great pleasure today we finally get our site up online! Small steps towards something much bigger! For my first blog, I'd simply like to introduce you to our team and what we do. We hope to use this blog to keep everyone updated on our progress but also to tell our story of how we all left a global IT consultancy and started SambaStream. Hopefully along the way we'll learn some good lessons that we can share with you as we come across them!

Our story so far:

The three of us have all worked for one of the world's largest IT consultancies, helping large enterprises, NGOs, and governments around the world develop portals and content management systems. Through this experience we've had in-depth exposure to a lot of the issues that people come across when trying to use content management systems (which most people understand as online document management and collaboration) and most importantly, noticed that the backbone of the economy, small and medium size businesses, can't afford access to these critical technologies to help them collaborate and share knowledge effectively themselves!

Out of this need, and also from our desire to start our own business and have a positive impact on our field of expertise, we have left (or are in the process of leaving) the large IT consultancy to get started developing online applications for small and medium enterprises that are affordable, intuitive to use, and address the core needs of these businesses.