Business apps continue moving online

In a posting on the AlwaysOn Network, Brian Desmond muses on the Future of the Business Applications Market. He predicts that:

...five years from now the market for business applications will be dominated by a group of business service providers that provide applications in a utility like manner. The majority of applications will be accessed via the web negating the need to implement software and customers will easily be able to transition from one provider to another if they are unsatisfied with the service provided and/or value attained.

I tend to agree with this prediction. It is already happening to a large degree, and I'm sure there are dozens of other products currently in development beside the three he indicated (Salesforce.com, Webex, and Ketera, his own company), and the ones that I am aware of. The installation and maintenance of software systems is onerous for any company, and if it lies outside the company's core competencies, it's almost always easier and less expensive to offload the burden to a web service. See also the first commenter, who points out which industries would benefit most from "software as a service model."

I, for one, think that we should push absolutely everything that we can online. More on this in a future post.