The Cloud and the Re-Birth of Legacy Software

We have watched with interest over the last few years as the business software market has seen increased acceptance of the cloud. We recently wrote a white paper on how to determine if a cloud software solution is right for your organization. It takes a completely objective view of the pros, cons, and costs of both cloud and on-premises solutions. If you would like a free copy, please email us at info@softresources.com and we will email it to you.

When looking at cloud solutions, most people think of flashy new software that is on the latest technology and offer their solution exclusively via the internet. But what is interesting right now is that we are seeing some of the legacy vendors actually leverage the cloud as a way to have a re-birth of sorts. These vendors have software solutions that were built decades ago and have a large install base. Because they are not on the latest technologies, they have relied on upselling and supporting their install base and milking maintenance revenues because it has been difficult to sell older technology to IT groups that are moving forward technologically. While they are functionally strong, they have not been able to compete with the more modern solutions.

Enter the cloud and the “Software as a Service” approach to selling software. Now, these vendors are able to host their solution and companies can access their software through the internet without having to maintain the legacy technology. This essentially takes the technology issue off the table (because the vendor handles all of that for the customer) and turns the software decision into a functional analysis – which is where these vendors shine because they have built up their functionality over decades.

Just in the past week, we have talked with two legacy vendors that are starting to ramp up salespeople again to go after new sales. It will be very interesting to see if these vendors can recapture sales momentum.

So if you are looking for new software – make sure you check out the new cloud solutions, but don’t count out those old vendors yet – the cloud actually makes them viable.