Digital Media Buzz > Sending SaaS Apps into the Future

Sending SaaS Apps into the Future

By Lauren Fritsky

By 2011, 25 percent of new business software will be delivered via SaaS, according to the Gartner Group. But what’s behind building a SaaS application that fits both the company and the user? And how can future applications rise to the challenge?

Using a SaaS application allows businesses to let another company manage the “tech heavy” tasks of security such as ongoing maintenance of hardware and software, system availability, upgrades and back-ups, says Pamela O’Hara, president of BatchBlue Software. The company’s CRM SaaS application BatchBook helps small businesses and entrepreneurs organize their contact data and manage their social media network.

There’s also benefit to the user of a SaaS application, says Kurt Roberts, director of technical services at Q-Industries, an interactive agency that designs and builds online brands, websites and advanced Internet-based applications. He says the key to developing SaaS apps that are centered on the user is to identify “a very sharply defined task, and focus a lot on that one task.

“That helps make it easier because you’re eliminating wrong choices. The interesting [apps] are going to be the ones that redesign real world tasks online.”

SaaS apps allow designers to go in and make changes as soon as possible if things aren’t working the way they want them to, Roberts points out. With no deployment cost, users can see the changes immediately. When it comes to determining what should go into a SaaS app, he says designers need to “sit back and consider everyone that’s going to be using” the application and focus on what that user group looks like. “Who are the people, and how do they need to use it and what do they want to accomplish?” he says. “Designers have to blend the company that is using it with what users are working with.”

Part of BatchBook’s creation incorporated, but didn’t rely on, customer involvement, O’Hara says. She says to always ask for feedback, but not take all of it. “Take that feedback and come up with an efficient internal process for deciding what gets implemented and what does not,” she says. “You cannot and should not implement everything that your users request. Your product would become a hot mess of feature anarchy if you do.”

One of the challenges to SaaS applications is resisting the implementation of too many features, something the more agile development environments allow for, O’Hara says. Ease-of-use and interface consistency must also be maintained so that users are not overwhelmed by the application. Companies should also monitor the platforms, because SaaS applications must be fully functional across many operating systems, Web browsers and mobile systems.

There is plenty of integration in store for Saas apps, O’Hara believes. BatchBlue is one of the founding members of The Small Business Web, a 30-member SaaS coalition that is working to help companies integrate their respective products. The group hopes to use members’ APIs to “provide a high-level of integration between these applications and create a more seamless experience for our customers.” Data portability will also be a consideration in the future of SaaS apps for businesses whose employees are sharing data across an application, O’Hara believes.

“For example, if two partners set up a business account, both upload all of their contacts and then decide to dissolve the business, who owns that information?” she says. “It is important for business owners to understand the ‘Terms of Service’ of the application and make sure that they properly document who owns all of the business data.”

Lauren Fritsky is a freelance writer and professional blogger based outside Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in several newspapers and magazines and on sites such as AOL and CNN.