Today Google launched Chrome, its new beta browser. Chrome is designed specifically to run applications rather than just display pages. As such, it’s ideal for running SaaS applications such as salesforce.com, sugar crm, SAP BusinessByDesign, Oracle CRM OnDemand etc.
Nicholas G Carr on his blog today argues that “the real goal of Chrome, embedded in [its] open-source code, is to upgrade the capabilities of all browsers so that they can better support (and eventually disappear behind) the applications.” The web as a computing platform continues its relentless march.
As SaaS gains increasing popularity, the way businesses are buying applications is changing. SaaS apps are proving easier and quicker to buy. The average business unit head is very comfortable with the web – it doesn’t hold the fear and pain of “going through IT” to get something done. If you can sign up for FT.com to get your news with the company credit card – why not a CRM tool too?
But the fact/illusion that you can simply “sign up over the internet” is having real impact on the decision-making cycles B2B marketers are used to. Sales cycles are shorter, traditional due diligence is being shortcut. Many more decisions are being made on the basis of politics, ambition, emotion and frustration. Often IT is being left out of SaaS purchase processes entirely.
Nick Booth’s article last week for Computer Weekly highlights a study by Gartner research which showed that 75% of all SaaS is bought by business unit managers, rather than IT managers. Gartner warns CIOs to get involved in the decision-making, saying: “It’s happening in your organisation anyway, whether you like it or not.”
All this adds up to interesting times ahead for B2B marketers. If browser technology is evolving to make applications easier to run and access to the latest software is a click away, what does that mean for our marketing efforts? Should we look to the publishing world or the gaming world for models? Is the SaaS subscriber model bringing a “throwaway” culture to organisational IT buying?
IT decision-making power is shifting rapidly, and the perception of organisational IT is changing with it. Take a good look at what it means for your programmes.
1 comment
There is certainly a lot more to be learned from the gaming world than the publishing world. If global aviation companies are beginning to desgin aircraft control systems that mimic flight simulation computer/console games to entice ‘gamers’ into joining the military (and, therefore, the traditional workforce and out of their mothers’ basements!), then we can be certain that the video game industry is becoming an increasingly powerful influence. The world of online gaming reaches 217 million people globally, and that dosn’t include numbers such as the 1.75 million worldwide who bought gaming consoles in August alone. The more money and energy that goes into designing for and marketing to the gaming indsutry, the more gamers are positioned at the forefront of the next generations of technology — for example, personal computer hardware is advancing at the speed of light because game design and programming is advancing at the speed of light and requiring bigger, better and faster computers (in smaller packages, of course!) for each succesive release of World of Warcraft expansion packs. I firmly believe that the wider IT industry should be paying more attention to the gaming world, not only as the driving force behind emerging technologies, but also because some of the smartest people I have ever met have learned everything they know about IT just so they can cheat better at video games.
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