One concern for many professionals is whether saas/on-demand is ready for prime time. Is there a demand or are professionals sitting back waiting for some invisible dam to burst? Dave Turner, CODA’s head of marketing tells me the company was ‘inundated’ at Dreamforce. Aqilla (more on them later) say they had a fantastic response to a single shot campaign they ran on AccountingWeb. Aqilla says it has taken them several weeks to work through the enquiries. They formally come out of beta at the end of this month. The same response story goes for e-conomic. Xero is so busy they struggle to take my calls.
All of this is good news for the on-demand accounting market. But here’s a few observations:
CODA has probably had the most blog and mainstream coverage so far yet only a handful of pieces have been written. Two of them have been for the US market. My take at ZDNet US is here. My Irregular colleague Phil Wainewright also wrote a chunky piece on ZDnet. Apart from some coverage on AccountancyAge, the remainder were on relatively low volume sites like FSN, IrishDev and here.
Here’s the best bit - if you’re an on-demand fan - CODA’s announcement has clearly rattled Sage who, on AccountancyAge noted:
In response to the launch of CODA2go the new force.com application released by Coda this week, Harrison [group FD Sage] said: ‘They have no brand in the SME market.
‘We have a good relationship with business. If you get the support right the customers will renew their contracts.’
This is where I find myself mildly amused. In today’s online world, brand is IRRELEVANT. If Sage wants to carry on thinking that then fine. What matters is delivery and reputation. I don’t know anyone who is enamored of Sage’s attitude towards customers. Its innovation R&D is almost zero and over the last couple of years has consistently signaled an intent to milk its customer base from ‘maintenance and support’ fees. It’s an unsustainable model for a product that is mature and going nowhere except to add more bloat.
The on-demand players on the other hand can legitimately point to continuous innovation, a good level of interest in fresh approaches and a desire among potential customers to see something that will break the Pacioli driven mould of what a modern accounting package means.
Let’s be clear. Sage is going nowhere by which I mean it is not going to disappear anytime soon. But it’s acquisition for growth strategy inevitably means it is building an integration monster that it has to address at some piont in time.
The on-demand players in the meantime look for meaningful partnerships where they don’t have core competency but complementary technology. CODA2go is a great example of this and I expect to see more of the same over the next year or so.
No-one on the on-demand world is pretending that the road ahead is easy. As Bob Warfield correctly points out, getting the economics right for on-demand requires significant engineering work. Partnerships are always problematic though I’d argue technology partnerships of the kind CODA has elected to go after are likely far stronger than pure marketing plays.
Finally, it is clear the blogs are providing quality coverage of these players. Even though blog readership compared to mainstream publications is tiny, niche blogs are seen as influencing. I have been told by SAP that is why my Irregular colleagues have ‘influencer’ status at SAP’s board. I am also told that is why I was asked to participate on a round table discussion with Charles Phillips, president of Oracle.
Cynics will argue (correctly!) that I would say that as someone with a vested interest. But focus and integrity matter. I argue the blogs provide solid coverage that can be trusted in a way the attention driven mainstream media cannot. We have the time, energy and commitment to make strong cases. Am I over stating the impact/effect? Probably. Mainstream media is still important if waning as an influencing factor. Am I self-serving? Absolutely - I have a position to maintain. But it is good to know that those of us who are looking to find value in software are helping others discover new offerings that breathe new life into the old dog of ‘accounting software.’ (Self promo over 
)
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