Zane Benefits has been using a Microsoft Exchange Server for email/calendar/contacts since I joined and it's been a thorn in my side.  I'm not exactly an I.T. person, but neither is anyone else at the company, so I end up being the one responsible in the event of a technology problem.  For the first year we hosted the exchange server in house (big mistake) and since then we've used Rackspace's recently acquired Mailtrust service which happens to be the biggest waste of money ever.

Anyway, today I snapped and decided it's time to migrate everything over to google apps.  The change won't take place until this weekend, but I'm already happy about it.  There are a lot of things that exchange in particular is bad at and that google in particular is good at, but I'm going to go over the advantages that all Saas applications offer.

In case you don't know, SaaS stands for "Software-as-a-Service".  While the name allows for different implementations, SaaS really just means "web app".  It's not just a website though, it's a web app that takes the place of what a desktop app did in the past.

Saas is also related to Cloud Computing which is when all your data and everything is stored somewhere online (or "the cloud").  While desktop apps still have their place, it's so much easier to support an SaaS I.T. infrastructure.  Let's look at some advantages:

• Data Available Everywhere - When everything is stored online, there's no concept of "syncing".  You can go on any computer with a web browser and access your email, notes, calendar, whatever.  When you buy a new computer or your existing one fails, no worries.  You don't need backups and you don't even need to install programs.
• Processing - There's no reason for your computer to do all the work.  Servers are much better at performing tasks efficiently so let them take some of the workload.  For example, outlook absolutely kills my computer with it's memory footprint.  Gmail is way faster and more powerful, but my computer isn't doing any of the work.  Hooray!
• Updates - This is the biggest one that most people don't think about.  With a desktop app you have to constantly download updates, restart your computer, and then realize your updates didn't work because Adobe can't write a goddamn update application to save their lives.  Now imagine managing these updates for every computer in an office.  With Saas, the updates happen on the server.  Google can push out patches and fixes whenever they want and it doesn't disrupt the user at all.
• Collaboration - Not all Saas applications take advantage of this, but anyone and everyone can access a web app at the same time.  Trying to do something like sharing a document using a desktop office application is a huge mess.  Aside from file sharing and networking issues, very few desktop apps are built to support any kind of real time collaboration.
• Hardware - The less software you're running in house, the fewer machines you actually need.  It's a pain maintaining servers and there are other companies out there that are really good at it.  Let those guys handle the hardware.
• Security - Many people will disagree with this, but I trust google with my data a lot more than I trust myself.  Anyone could break into my house and steal my computer.  I doubt anyone will be stealing any gMail servers any time soon.
• Background Processes - There are a lot of useful things being done throughout the day that I don't have to manage myself.  Google Calendar texts me when I have an event soon.  Mint.com sends me emails if a credit card bill is almost due.  To get this functionality with desktop apps I'd have to leave each program I use running all the time.  If my computer turns off, Mint's servers are still alive and well.
• Mobility - Mobile devices are getting better. but they still can't handle full blown applications like your computer can.  With web apps, you only need to be able to view a website.  As I mentioned in the processing section, why not let a powerful server do the work for you?