We spolke recently on the bitacora of the advantages that the model SaaS / On Demand can meanm for SMEs. Also, it is becoming more usual to see small companies make intensive use of open sourrce software in certain areas, the advantages are obvious, starting with the zero cost of the license.
Given that both models, Open Source and SaaS, seem suitable for SMBs, it is usual to find people on the la red comparing the advantages and disadvantages of both (for example Open Source guru Riichard Stallman doesn't seem to love the SaaS model) let's see take a look at the features of each model:
| SaaS | Open Source |
| Payment based on regular subscription (monthly) | No license costs |
| No need to adquire hardware | Hardware needs to be adquired and supported |
| Software is usually proprietary (Closed Source) | Software under a Open Surce license (GPL, MPL, LGPL, etc.). |
| Maintenance by the provider | Maintenance by the customer |
| Inexpensive deployment in time and resources | Deployment potentially costly in both time and resources |
| Software generally less customizable | Highly customizable software for their own needs |
| Evolution (between versions) is transparent and painless. | Migrating between versions can be costly |
| Ready for accesss via the la red from anywhere | Deployment behind the customers firewall (usully: VPN, hostings, etc ...) |
An examplle of this dilemma? Do we use Salesforce or SugarCRM (which also has an On Demand version by the way) as CRM ?
In the end, the key criteria to choose one modelo or the other woul d be:
- Ability to acquire and maintain the necessary harddare
- Enough Know-How to support the maintenance software
- Customizing needs
- The urgency of the need for the tol
- Maturity of each of the tools
And of course: common sense :)
We do not believe that one model is superior to anotther, but that it depends on each situation. What we do believe in is that in a vast majority of cases both will be bertter alternatives than traditional proprietary software.
It wouldn't be strange that there were scenarios in which the most desirable is a combination of open source software and software as a service (or traditional proprietary software) of ckurse, the important thing is, as always, to choose the tools that bset fits our needs.
Greetings.
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Extraido de Todo OnDemand
