Software as a Service (SaaS), the remote
software delivery model that depends on a network or Internet
connection for functionality, is going offline.
Expect to see SaaS vendors increasingly offering offline
versions of their products to accommodate a growing mobile
workforce not always able to connect to a corporate network or the
Internet.
"There's no real issue when people are working in the office or at
home," said Phil Wainewright, CEO of Procullux Ventures, a
London-based strategic marketing company. "But when you're
traveling, staying in hotels, attending conferences, visiting
customer sites, productivity just dives if you can't work offline."
Wainewright said some leading SaaS vendors, such as
Salesforce.com Inc. and NetSuite Inc., have offered offline
capabilities for some time, "but it's tended to be quite limited in
functionality. What we're now talking about is having the same
functionality offline as online, and then refreshing the
information on reconnection. That's a much more sophisticated
concept."
Some SaaS vendors are diving right in.
ThinkFree Corp. in San Jose, Calif., provides a free, online
office productivity suite with a free gigabyte of storage. Not only
is the online version free, but its online nature also allows users
to publish and collaborate freely with each other.
ThinkFree generates revenue from its online product through
advertising. It also sells a server-based enterprise edition.
However, until now, the 230,000 users of ThinkFree's online
software have been unable to use it without an Internet connection.
That will change in the spring.
"In March we are planning to launch a premium edition that is
subscription-based and that will offer offline access to the
applications," said Jonathan Crow, director of marketing at
ThinkFree. "Basically, we're taking the power of the applications
written in Java and allowing customers to use those Java versions
offline. Then when they reconnect to the Internet they can
synchronize with [their online account]."
Crow said his company will roll out a single-user consumer
version first, followed closely by a small and medium business
version that will offer group management and file and folder
security.
Demand for an offline version of ThinkFree came from the
company's users, Crow said.
"One of the things we heard over and over again is that
ThinkFree online is great, but people still need to use it offline
and they're willing to pay for that availability. There are still a
lot of places in the world that aren't wireless and you can't get
connected. For the traveling professional especially, you have long
airline flights on which they need to be productive."
Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies Inc., a
Wellesley, Mass.-based SaaS consultancy, said the growth of offline
SaaS solutions is a natural evolution in the market, a recognition
that not everyone has access to the Internet when they need to use
SaaS software. He said applications that depend on real-time
information will be little affected by this trend.
"It has more to do with those applications where users are
interested in taking advantage of applications to get their own
jobs done, and the timeliness of doing the work requires that they
have immediate access to applications, but the need for that work
to be logged in a central depository can be delayed," Kaplan
said.
Liz Herbert, senior analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester
Research Inc., said the trend won't affect applications that serve
office-based personnel, such as human resources and financial
department workers. But sales staff and field personnel who spend
time on the road will appreciate offline applications. This is why
many SaaS CRM vendors have already had some tools with limited
offline functionality.
Sean Kearney, director of training and performance management at
Time Warner Cable Inc., uses ThinkFree's online product. With the
offline desktop version on the verge of release, he said he thinks
it might find a place in his company, where Kearney directs
training design, development and delivery for Time Warner's call
center employees and field personnel.
Kearney said an offline version of ThinkFree would be welcome.
"I have a heck of a time getting Wi-Fi to run on my laptops running
Fedora and Ubuntu Linux," he said. "An offline version of ThinkFree
will make it much easier to work untethered, knowing that when I
reconnect the Ethernet line, I am back in business without skipping
a beat."
Kearney said he may use ThinkFree's offline product to boost
collaboration among the 1,400 employees he helps train at Time
Warner.
"We used to use
wiki software to encourage collaboration,
but we will be considering moving these activities over to
ThinkFree as well," Kearney said. "Once they release a desktop
version that syncs up with the remote content, we have great
opportunities to take another step in our work."
Socialtext Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor of enterprise
wiki technology, has announced Socialtext Unplugged, an offline
version of its wiki application. With the click of a button, users
can download an entire wiki as a Zip file, and edit and write
entries for the wiki while offline. When connected to a network
again, the user can click another button to automatically
synchronize changes made offline with the online wiki.
"This is a natural part of Enterprise 2.0 growing up,"
Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield said. "First, we had to support the
continual connected user. We did that with the wiki. Next, we had
to support the occasionally connected user. It used to be the
default that they developed software for the client. Now you
develop software for the server. And eventually it will be
developed for the server with multiple clients."
Let us know what you think about the story; email:
Shamus McGillicuddy,
News Writer