The end of installations?

Seth Godin predicts the end of installed software in a recent post and really hits the nail on the head.

Salesforce.com popularized this craze in the CRM world and rivals soon emerged (see Netsuite’s impending IPO). You know they are on to something when Microsoft, king of the installed software world, enters the space. Microsoft has announced an on-demand version of it’s CRM offering, Dynamics. Not only will it have functionality mirroring salesforce’s, but they will price it at roughly 40% less in a bid to capture market share.

The success of these solutions is no surprise. There are many compelling reasons for B2B marketers to turn to hosted solutions, and indeed most email, analytics, and ad serving solutions are on-demand. Obvious benefits include:

• no (or lower) capital outlay
• less (or no) IT involvement needed
• more likely to work out of the box
• seamless upgrade process as everything is done on the provider’s end

A common theme to the above mentioned benefits is that the marketer is put in control of the marketing software. This is a simple idea, but it is not always the case with heavier, server installed applications where budget and IT approval often kill any hope of integration. By lessening IT involvement, and splitting payments into monthly fees, a marketer is much more likely to be able to implement a new solution without jumping through hoops for approval.

If only I could find an on-demand operating system before Vista crashes my computer again. Service Pack 2… where are you?