We love to release early and release often. It makes us and our users happy. But, we sometimes fall into the trap of doing some things so quickly that in hindsight it would have been better off not to release the feature at all. In the race to keep up, thinking about getting the new features out the door seems so tempting, but, if not planned properly, can compromise on the user experience of your overall product - not to mention having grumpy users that might leave!

There is absolutely no point in releasing a feature for the sake of a release and to maintain a track record - if it is not done yet!

Get it working nicely and let the new feature fit well with exiting features within your app. Creating a loose-ended feature that you will improve upon over time is no excuse for just throwing something online and then worrying about the user experience later.

It is ok if this development takes a bit more time. I am not saying you need to get it perfect, but you need to ‘manage’ the user experience part of it really well. Will the user use it and keep using it? Are you solving a real need for the feautre in your app? Is it building upon something that you don’t have currently? Will it help users save time? In the case of DeskAway, the question we often ask is if it will help people work smarter and collaborate effectively?

Recently, we were debating on how we would integrate the Google Docs functionality within a DeskAway project - it is extremely useful (we use Google Docs a lot) when you can access your Google Docs within your projects and even share comments with your team. Everything is so neatly organized. Logically, Google Docs would fit well within DeskAway’s Docs section. Should we have it separate (like another drop-down for gDocs) and run it parallel with our existing Docs functionality? This would definitely be easier to program in and we won’t have to worry about dabbling a lot within the current Docs code. In the name of ‘release fast, release often’, we mocked it up and realized that it is going to be a pain in the $%# for the user to not only navigate an additional menu item but he/she will have to go to 2 seperate pages to see Docs created within DeskAway and Docs created/attached via Google. Definitely not a practical solution when you think about ease of use and the overal workflow of a typical user. We scraped this idea and went ahead with re-engineering our code for the Docs section to also include Google Docs - a little more time consuming but worth it! When complete, this will present the user a one-page summary of all his/her docs - and the Google ones will be labeled with a nice Google Docs icon.

We could have released with the original idea and gotten feedback on how to improve - but we are here to not waste our user’s time. We rather give you something that is functional than something that seems functional but won’t add to the over experience of collaborating in a team.

So, stay tuned untile we release this new feature very soon

Some interesting points from ‘Cloud Adoption: The Difference Between Small & Large Companies‘ on Sandhill.com…

Another interesting pattern emerges when you look at the really small companies with less than 100 employees. A recent survey by Spiceworks Inc. resulted in 1,500 global responses from their Voice of IT Market Research Program. In this survey, nearly half of the responses (47 percent) are from businesses with fewer than 20 employees, while 24 percent are from businesses with 100 or more employees. The data shows that 14 percent of SMBs are currently using cloud solutions and another 10 percent plan to deploy cloud services over the next six months. The smallest SMBs (companies with less than 20 employees), high-tech companies, and companies in emerging economies are on the leading edge of the adoption curve. Though the user base is smaller today, the adoption rate appears to be growing.

Our research found that SMEs are twice as likely to move their core business-critical services to the cloud as large enterprises (25 percent versus 12 percent)

Cloud adoption is catching up with the hype. For example, some SMBs have up to 80 percent of their services in the cloud.

No doubt that almost everybody will be using cloud services in the near future. Though, the adoption by small businesses is going to lead the way.

Pulse of Technology, is a blog for Tech enthusiasts. They recently featured DeskAway’s founder Sahil parikh talking  on Cloud Computing Services.

India aims to become the fastest growing economy in 2010. How can a growing small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) benefit with this new technology trend?

That is exactly the area my book will be addressing. Small businesses will now have the ability to use the same tools and techniques that larger companies enjoyed for years. They can leverage Web 2.0/ Social Media tools to connect with prospects / customers, build their brand, and use Enterprise 2.0 tools to automate systems within their workplace using free, inexpensive and simple tools.

Can Deskaway cater to the project management needs of small & mid size companies of non IT sector say manufacturing?

Absolutely. In fact, besides technology companies, DeskAway users are from manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, accounting etc. We are seeing more and more teams move away from email as a primary form of collaboration (sharing files, delegating tasks, planning work etc.) and use a web-based application.

Read More.

Thanks Basant from Techno-Pulse!!

Goldman Sach has released a survey about technology software usage as on Feb 2010. According to these reports SaaS usage is surely on the rise especially by small to medium sized businesses.

44% of the companies use SaaS for collaboration,

Pluggd.in is a blog about startups, entrepreneurship and tech in the Indian sector. Sahil recently contributed a guest post on common SaaS myths and ways to overcome them.

Using online software to increase productivity and grow your business is a no brainer. I can’t imagine why any small business would not readily adopt SaaS. What’s holding them back (besides poor bandwidth penetration in some areas) when they can pay a monthly subscription, not have to worry about installation, upgrades and have access to the same tools that their competitors have? This is close to having ’software utopia’ for the small business!

Lets go back in time….

- People might not have been prepared to put their money with other people’s money when banking was established. Banking and online banking is mainstream now.

- People were probably afraid to get on an aircraft which weighed a few tones and promised to soar like a bird. Today, air travel is a given.

Back to the present.

Currently, we are witnessing one of the biggest shifts in enterprise software (software used for business) and as everything else, it comes with it’s own set of myths, mindsets and confusion. Here are a few I have experienced over the last few years from people who are still not ready to adopt online software for their business.

“My data is more secure with me than putting it on someone else’s server”

Your data is more secure at your vendor’s data center than your own internal network. Security is more than just about taking daily backups, maintaining uptime and setting up a firewall. It’s about password policies, encryption, intrusion detection, offsite backups, secure transmission, software updates, patching etc. If hosting or maintaining servers is not your core business then you are better off renting out software from a reputed vendor who understands all these things. This will ensure peace of mind in the long run.

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