We recently released a book by WebEx Co-founder Subrah Iyer, “Why Buy the Cow – How the On-Demand Revolution Powers the New Knowledge Economy”.   As the project manager for the book’s development, I learned a lot – mostly that getting a book out the door is not easy.  On the other hand, what a wonderful learning experience it has been. 

Subrah’s book focuses on the power of Software as a Service (SaaS) in today’s new flattened world (what would Christopher Columbus say to hear us call the world flat – how perception changes!).  It is rich with case studies of companies who have dramatically changed the way they do some part of their business by using SaaS products or Web 2.0 functionality.  In fact if you are looking for a primer on either SaaS or on Web 2.0, this is a good place to start.    

Historically, every major high tech innovation has provided significant opportunities (and risks) for companies and each revolutionizes how work gets done.  Software as a Service is no exception.  Surely it democratizes business by enabling the solopreneur, the large enterprise, and every size business in between to harvest the benefits of technology at a much lower price point.  Why buy the software product and incur all the overhead associated with it (the cow) when you can just rent what you really need to get your job done.  Many applications - CRM comes to mind - that used to be affordable only to well established companies with solid revenue streams are now accessible to almost anyone. When I worked for a 20 person start-up we used both WebEx and Salesforce.com.  No overhead and we purchased only what we needed.  For the solopreneur and the very small business, this is simply fantastic.  As Brent Leary of CRM Essentials (www.crm-essentials.com) describes in his blog         http://www.blackenterprise.com/cms/exclusivesopen.aspx?id=3960, it enables a brave new world of global solopreneurs.    

For large enterprises with complex IT infrastructures, they may need to integrate their SaaS applications with their existing enterprise applications – this generation’s blended it model.  A little more work, but companies can still reap major benefits as evident by the number of big firms that are using Salesforce.com or Rightnow Technologies for their CRM systems.   

My personal favorite company (beyond WebEx of course) highlighted in the book is Chinesepod, a company that sells on-demand podcasts for learning Mandarin Chinese.  Very cool indeed. 

One more point, we chose to publish “Why Buy the Cow” using lulu.com, yep – another SaaS company, one that is highlighted in the book.  It supports our belief in the SaaS model.  We did not have to incur the costs of a printing a huge run and books are printed when ordered.  And even though published, printed, and available on a lulu.com storefront, the book is also available on amazon.com and Cisco Press

 (http://www.ciscopress.com/promotions/index.asp).  So self-serving as this is, check it out.  Happy Reading.