SMEs want remote control

The remote delivery of applications is the future, says Colin Boag.

A great deal of lip service has been paid to the needs of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in recent years, not least by the IT giants which hope to pounce on the hard-earned readies of small companies now that their natural habitat, the corporate sector, has reached saturation point.

Microsoft and IBM have made a lot of noise about the utility-style delivery of technology but, despite the rhetoric, corporate software players have not been able to scale down their solutions sufficiently for SMEs.

The fact is that small businesses are far better understood by vendors and resellers that have a history of specialisation in this market.

Those of us who have sold to SMEs for many years know that they are not much interested in technology.

IT is rarely seen as an enabler but rather as an expensive hindrance and a necessary evil. With this is mind, it is about time we made life easier for SMEs and gave them an IT model that suits their needs and budgets.

The remote delivery of applications, at one time described as application service provision, has until recently been largely overlooked for SMEs, even though this market has most to gain from the model.

Remote delivery and management of technology allows SMEs to avoid the crippling initial outlay of IT investment. And, by paying a fixed monthly fee, users are able to remain in control of the costs.

This model enables SMEs to gain access to applications which they could not otherwise afford, and the IT headache is passed on to the application service provider.

There are fantastic opportunities for forward thinking resellers to grow their businesses, as long as they bite the bullet and invest in technical staff.

Hardware is an irrelevance to SMEs that buy a remotely delivered solution; they are buying the application function and the benefits to their business.

If a reseller is prepared to invest in sales, pre-sales and implementation skills, the licence revenue and the professional services can be extremely attractive.

The days of the infrastructure players that called themselves application service providers but had no applications to deliver are long gone. The future is called remote delivery. It's just around the corner, and it works.

Colin Boag is managing director of JBS Computer Services.