Can Web Services & SaaS be used to replace Client Service applications?
Obviously web services are just that - services. Therefore this may seem like a ridiculous question. However, I don’t think it is.
After all, an application is simply multiple modules communicating with each other via procedure / method / function calls. Each module probably reads / writes/ edits / deletes from a database and passes variables of information between each module utilizing well understood interfaces.
What’s to say that the next company making decisions regarding their deal capture, contracts or counterparty system shouldn’t use a service made available by a vendor that has made modules or even individual screens available as a services?
The vendor would specify the interfaces to the service, just like web designers do with google maps today, and effectively embed the screen into the company’s IT infrastructure. For an extremely simplistic view of what I’m suggesting here it is worth considering two very different applications Google Maps and Craigslist
Paul Rademacher creator of Housing Maps.com
These are two very different web sites. One provides a web map of a location and the other provides items for sale and / or rent in a location. Combine the two and you get Housing Maps. HousingMaps is the creation of Paul Rademacher which is a “Mashup” of Google Maps and CraigsList. The result is an overlay of houses and apartments available for sale or rent on top of a Google Map of the area searched. For more on the creation of housingmaps.com see this article.
After reflecting on the consequences of this for a while I started to realize that there is a huge opportunity for corporations worldwide to run with this concept.
So why would a company do this?
There are multiple reasons:
- Reduced upgrade costs - the vendor of the service can upgrade functionality without it affecting the internal infrastructure within the company
- More flexibility in how vendor solutions are utilized within an organization
- Better quality software - Easier to test, more users should mean fewer bugs
- Componentized software - more agile solutions for the business
I was recently discussing these ideas with Perry Young who is President and CEO of Palm Tree Business Solutions Perry’s response was exactly the response I was hoping for: “Yea why not?”
Filed under: Business Intelligence, Information Efficiency, Trading, Web Services, Web2.0