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extracts or reports they want. Also, our products tend to be tightly integrated with the revenue control equipment, and moving the application to a remote host makes that more difficult to install and support. That said, we feel that SaaS certainly has a place, though it may not be the best fit for our current applications.” Some potential customers also fret about Internet outages. ParkingSOFT addresses these problems by buffering data exchanges in a server on site at the location. The onsite server collects data from hardware devices and is dedicated only to system communications. In the event of outages, “system operations continue to operate efficiently at the parking location on [the] local server,” says Oldknow. “All data and off site functions completed via the Internet by the host server are immediately loaded and available once the connection is restored.” Blake Laufer adds that some of T2’s clients host their own data due to some of these concerns, cautioning that it is usually more expensive to do so. He believes most of these objections, while legitimate, can be covered in the acquisition process by an informed buyer. “The SaaS model has been proven in other industries,” Laufer notes. “Most of the issues have been worked out. Nevertheless there are some concerns. [Guarantees of the] availability of the system is a key item—usually measured in “nines of uptime” (99 percent, 99.9 percent, 99.99 percent, etc.) and with a smaller or inexperienced hosting provider this can be an issue. Data security is sometimes a concern. Again this comes down to the host (and the application) preventing unauthorized access, compliance to standards like PCI-DSS, and so forth.” End users should also make sure it is clear who owns the data. “While it’s true that the customer doesn’t own the soft ware,” Laufer says, “most SaaS agreements do explicitly state that the customer owns the data. Data can be extracted/exported and sent to the customer as needed (though I have heard of cases where a host will hold the data hostage for non-payment of SaaS fees).” A key to resolving this concern is redundant storage of the data and frequent backups via download from the service. At ParkingSOFT, for example, all stored data can be exported to the customer in several Microsoft

compatible formats. “Data can also be downloaded and stored in these formats for archive daily at the end user's discretion and is recommended. End users are encouraged to download and archive data locally,” says Oldknow.

Future is Cloudy?
So is the traditional desktop or server-based soft ware installation dead? T2’s Laufer doesn’t think so. “There will be co-existence of the SaaS model and the traditional (perpetual license) model for a long time,” Laufer says. “Not all applications are suited to a subscription/hosting model, so those will never migrate to SaaS. However I do believe that SaaS is here to stay, and will grow in popularity, eventually exceeding soft ware ownership. The next modification of SasS will probably be toward usage-based pricing and factoring in the amount of data under management.” As a former parking operator, Oldknow points out SaaS allows the end users to drive product improvement rather than soft ware developers trying to guess what future customers will need. The end result may be “Wiki-Parking-Soft ware” where communities of users sketch out possible enhancements and developers can quickly respond with new architecture to address those ideas with mass appeal. “Our system capabilities expand daily based on customer requests that are deemed to have merit,” Oldknow says. “If a suggested application is requested and supported in our internal review by a panel of experienced industry experts, program features and applications are written. When deployed, they are deployed systemwide, allowing all customers to take advantage of the new applications at their discretion.” As for the more distant future, Laufer says, “…the SaaS model provides better value for both customers and vendors, so I’d wager that just about all soft ware will be offered in this manner, and that the hardware will evolve to accessing servers ‘in the cloud’.”
Charles R. “Charlie” Munn III, CAPP CPP is a former commer, , cial parking executive and operations consultant. He is now a customer service management consultant and freelance writer. Contact him at cmunn3@aol.com.

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