In recent years, there’s been an obvious shift away from standalone or shrink-wrap applications — more and more, people use the web to do tasks previously done on their PC.
Lower support costs
Eliminating installed software reduces support overhead.
No piracy problem
Online systems generally avoid the piracy issues that dogged the shrink-wrap market for years.
Easier marketing
With downloadable products it’s much harder to connect sales back to marketing activity — online systems make this easier.
What to plan for
Online isn’t necessarily a panacea — creating an online product isn’t suited to all applications, and it’s generally more expensive. The tools and technologies for rich internet applications can be weak, making development costlier. If you provide your product online, you’re paying the server costs for every user — for a large user base, this can be significant. And the pace of web technology evolution means development investment can be wasted if you choose the wrong platform.
These issues make it essential to plan any online product development carefully — and to talk to people with real experience of the issues, like Shaimaa Networks.