Getting your software on the web has limits

By Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal "In the bad old days of corporate software -- that is, before "software as a service" arrived on the scene to save the day -- getting a big piece of new software running inside a company had numerous pitfalls and pain points. Consultants rang up big bills, and programs from different vendors didn't always work well together. In the end, the implementation often cost more and delivered less than anyone expected. Now, though, that "SAAS" is here, what are we starting to see? Alas, many of the same things.

"Software as a service" is one of those trends that rolls through the technology world every few years, promising an end to everything that people don't like about business as usual in the multibillion-dollar world of corporate technology. Typically, these new approaches deliver on some, but not all, of the promises, often while creating new problems of their own."