Over on AccountingWEB’s forums (you need an AWEB account to log in, but it’s free) there have been some heavy exchanges discussing the barriers to adoption of Cloudsolutions by accountants in practice in the UK. I found it
interesting, but sadly the dialogue has been too vendor driven, with
plenty of verbiage from the opponents of SaaS and the Cloud, along with
positive stuff from evangelists like me. I couldn’t resist chipping in
to make the business case for SaaS and the cloud, but Gary Turner of Xero thought we weren’t being too helpful for the accountant audience because it was all getting too “inside baseball”. That was a new one on me, but the trusty Wikipedia describes the expression as follows:
“The expression “inside baseball” is sometimes used as a
metaphor for details or minutia of a subject so detailed that they
generally are not well known by outsiders.”
Part of the need for going through the arguments (again)
is that although AccountingWEB has some good reviews of the available
products, and has covered the online accounting topic to some degree,
there isn’t one place that pulls together the SaaS and cloud story or
lays out the issues for consideration. We need the business case for
SaaS along with links to anything useful. That one place has just been
created by Dennis Howlett, and
as a wiki so that we can all help make it more “open” and even better.
He has created a database of the available online accounting and ERP
suppliers, within a set of PBworks
wiki pages that look set to grow in to a very useful resource. Without
much fanfare or marketing the resource got over 2,500 reads in the
first 4 days it was available. Both myself and Ben Kepes quickly requested editor rights from Dennis, and we’ve got stuck in adding links and more text. So far there is a:
- Front page explaining the whys and wherefores
- What you need to know page laying out the business case with links to tools, case studies and things like the Intellect document on the topic
- Suggested external resources page pointing at blogs, trade groups and useful directories
- Services Database showing the available online or SaaS solutions
There are already place holders for more pages so, in usual wiki
fashion, this resource will be a perpetual work in progress. If you
want to join in, use your existing PBworks account to log in, or sign up.
You’ll need to request access rights, and then as soon as Dennis gives
you the OK, you can help us build. This is exactly what we needed for
SaaS and cloud business applications here in the UK.
(Cross-posted @ Business Two Zero )
David – I commented over on BTZ but I’ll do the same here. I applaud this initiative – it is, after all, what I’ve been doing over the past couple of years with my reviews of accounting/ERP applications here on CloduAve. I do however have some concerns. Information wants to be free and non-proprietary. There’s a reason that Wikipedia works so well, that Wikileaks is fiercely independent and that Linux isn’t “owned” by a commercial entity. So to with this initiative. I think there needs to be some clarity around the end game for this thing – those who invest time and effort into it (especially those who aren’t vendors) would be crushed to see the efforts of the many monetized by the commercial imperatives of the few.
I’m a fan of full disclosure – it makes life much more simple….