1C for rent - a competitor for cloud solutions?

We are sometimes asked - “1C products can already be purchased by subscription. This is the same SaaS! Are you not afraid of competition? ”

We answer - not afraid. And that's why.

1C (including the closest analogue of MyStore - 1C: Trade Management, UT) can really be rented. Indeed, now UT can not be installed on the computer. And UT actually works well in the browser.

At the same time, 1C products still have three drawbacks, which practically cross out the benefits of the on demand model.
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1. The 1C platform does not support multi-tenancy.

   
   This means that for each client the provider must create and maintain a separate virtual (or physical) server. (In fact, this is not about SaaS, but about an older ASP model , Application Service Provider .)
   
   It would seem that this purely technical issue should not worry users. But in practice, such a model means a much greater cost for the provider to administer the infrastructure, and also - an order of magnitude greater demands on physical resources. As a result, providers cannot reduce the subscription price to the level typical for most SaaS products - about $ 10 per user per month. (You can compare the prices for 1C for rent and similar SaaS solutions.)
   
   

2. Updates.

   
   All 1C products, including UT, are periodically updated. Updates must be rolled manually. However, success is not guaranteed, so it is recommended to copy the base before installing the update. As we remember from paragraph 1, the provider must repeat this procedure for each of its customers separately.
   
   In fact, the situation is even worse. Products 1C customize using the so-called configuration changes. The changed configuration is called “non-standard” and with its updating the situation is much more complicated.
   
   In practice, updating a large existing 1C Accounting database from version 1.6 to 2.0 takes up to several days (goodbye, uptime!) And does not always end successfully on the first attempt, so the client should check the correctness of the data after each update.
   
   As a result, 1C users do not receive one of the key advantages of SaaS - transparent to the client service updates to the latest version.
   
   

3. Simplicity.

   
   Simplicity is a must for SaaS. Complex and incomprehensible services will not be sold over the Internet.
   Here, 1C products look catastrophically bad compared to their online counterparts. Even with a new product, managing a small business (conceived as a simple solution for a small business) is difficult to get going. More sophisticated and functional Trade Management raises the level of complexity to an extreme level.

Each of these three problems can stop the progress of any cloud product. And until they are solved in 1C, we, together with colleagues in the cloud shop, can safely develop our SaaS solutions.