Software as a Service in Nigeria?

| May 28, 2010 | Comments (2)

Cool article from the Nigerian Inquirer about software as a service from yours truly:

This is the first of a multi-part series of tech articles I am writing for the Nigerian Inquirer.

I would like to discuss some technology solutions that I believe would be appropriate and timely for Nigeria today.

I was originally going to write about all the problems Nigeria needs to solve before tech companies can flourish but upon writing a few paragraphs, it became apparent to me that you all probably know all the problems by now – lack of electricity, corruption, infrastructure etc etc..

Instead, I want to write about solutions that I believe the country desperatley needs and actually can implement in a timely manner.

Lets get started.. I believe that Nigeria is ripe for a dominant software as a service (SAAS) company.

What is Software as a Service?

Wikipedia defines it this way:

Software as a service (SaaS) is software that is deployed over the internet. With SaaS, a provider licenses an application to customers as a service on demand, through a subscription or a “pay-as-you-go” model. Saas is also called “software on demand.” SaaS vendors develop, host, and operate software for customer use. Rather than install software on site, customers access the application over the Internet. The SaaS vendor may run all or part of the application on their hardware, or may download executable code to client machines as needed—disabling it when the customer contract expires. The software can be licensed for a single user, or group of users.

I happen to know a lot about Software as a Service as I worked for one of the first SAAS companies in 1999 (Corio – now acquired by IBM). Back then, it went under the moniker ASP (Application Service Provider).

Back in the day, when companies wanted to install powerful, enterprise class software, they often had the following upfront costs:

  • Software License costs
  • Management Consulting costs
  • Hardware costs (typically servers)
  • Tech Support costs
  • Infrastructure (network) costs

and more…

For software packages like Oracle or SAP, these costs could easily be 5 to 10 million dollars – for a small implementation.

While that amount was affordable for larger (typically fortune 500 companies), smaller businesses often found themselves unable to afford these types of solutions.

Enter Software as a Service.

Read more

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Category: Adoption, Africa, Cool Stuff, New Products, Resources, ROI

About Onuora Amobi: Onuora Amobi is the founder and CEO of Nnigma, a leading online marketing firm headquartered in Pasadena, California. A Microsoft MVP with close to two decades of IT experience, he is also the co-author of the Windows 7 Deployment Guide for small businesses and IT Professionals(http://www.windows7deploymentguide.com). View author profile.

  • Stanley Anyadi

    I would like to know from what angle you’re looking to discuss about cloud. As a subscriber, provider or both. The two have varing issues i.e. the nigeria broadband still fall short of what is necessary to access an asset in the cloud. I accept we are experiencing granula improvement. There are other issues other than the obvious i.e. infrastructure electricity etc. As a provider, the calculation will be existing cloud issues plus those problems known to us (see above) then plus lack of privacy and data protection . Stanley Anyadi – Prof. Doc Information Security

  • All4lords

    as a technology consultant and into cloud computing, saas, iaas and paas. where could one fix him self if he comes back to Nigeria, with the knowledge of Oracle,SAP Basis, Unix and Cloud Computing where could one fix him self if relocated to Nigeria. pls any one with info should imbox me at all4lords@yahoo.com