Software as a service pros and cons

Phil Wainwright at Loosely Coupled alerted me to the fact that my RSS feed has been stalled since the last update of Blogger early July.

This illustrates the pros and cons of software as a service. The cons was that there is a ripple effect - I use Blogger as a service - no client software, no install, available anywhere, and a single update for all users. Therefore a single bug, change in default settings propagates from Blogger to me to Phil who is trying to consume my RSS feed. The same bug would effect everyone who is using Blogger and consuming RSS feeds.

The pros are a single fix and everyone is back in business. No need to test and deploy software for every platform. This is a radical change in economics and speed of distribution that is changing the playing field. If is no longer about the software it is about the service.

Improved productivity...

Microsoft has the power to increase global corporate efficiency by a single change to Outlook. Change the default meeting times to 20 minutes instead of 30 min. Make the new standard for meetings 20-40-60 bet we could all get the same done in a 20 min meeting as we do in a 30 min meeting the same for 40 versus 60.

Of course this would not stop the creation of more meetings....