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In this article, J. Carlton Collins provides
a quick & dirty glance at the brief history web-based
accounting.
In 1998, Netledger was launched by Larry
Ellison of Oracle. Larry put up $25 million t start the
organization. In 2000, Larry infused another $30 million.
Initially, NetLedger was made available at a monthly rental
fee ranging from free to about $5.00 per month, depending on
the level of product. In early 2001, NetLedger reported about
3,000 customers. The math works out to total revenue of just
$180,000. Obviously this is not enough revenue to support an organization
that is chewing through tens of millions of dollars each year.
As a result, a major dilemma has risen for Larry Ellison. You
see, Larry has long argued the case for "centralized
net computing" while his arch rival - Bill Gates has
long argued for "decentralized desktop computing".
Under Larry's approach, the application is installed on a
single file server which is then shared out to the masses.
Under Bill's approach, each individual installs their own
application on their own desktop computer, and only the data
is shared out to the masses. NetLedger thus has become an
important pawn in this behemoth battle. If Larry lets
NetLedger die, then Larry's opponents will use this as
evidence that the net computing is a bad idea, Bill Gates
wins, and everybody buys Microsoft applications for his or her
desktop. Do you remember when Howard Hughes built an expensive
shrine to the Spruce
Goose airplane that he later referred to as a bucket of
bones - he justified the shrine because he could not let the
public know that he had failed. Is Larry on similar ground
here? You can see the problem, right? To avoid failure, the
folks at Oracle have worked busily to improve the product.
They have renamed the product Oracle Small Business
Manager,
they have re-priced the product beginning at $100 per month,
and they have added an incredible amount of features, functionality,
and modules to the product. In my opinion, it is a great
solution, especially considering the bargain price tag.
In 1999, Peachtree countered back with it's
own web-based solution called ePeachtree. This product was the
older Peachtree Office Accounting product that was pulled off
the shelves, re-tooled, and then redeployed as a web-based
solution. Its decent.
In 2000, Intuit jumped on the bandwagon as
well. Their offering called QuickBooks for the Web represents
a very serious effort to build a new product from scratch,
re-thinking the way accounting software should look and feel.
there is no question that Intuit is taking the hard road here.
They have completely avoided the simple solution of deploying
QuickBooks on the web, instead, they are redesigning the whole
system - especially when it comes to the underlying
technology. The result has been missing features and lacking
functionality in earlier releases of QuickBooks for the web.
However, they seem very committed. I believe that if they
continue to pour in the effort in the manner they are pursing,
eventually the results will pay off.
ACCPAC became to first mid-range player to
embrace web-based accounting, and boy did they attack it.
David Hood practically bet the farm that web based accounting
would be a big hit - and mark my words, it still will be.
ACCPAC launched the ACCPAC Online web site in 1999 (http://www.accpaconline.com),
which allows end users to run ACCPAC from a simple browser for
a small monthly rental fee. ACCPAC has poured their heart and
soul into this effort and if you are considering a mid-range
web-based accounting software solution, ACCPAC Online is the
best place to start your evaluation.
SAP jumped on the bandwagon as well in 1999
with mySAP - yep, web-based accounting featuring a limited
number of SAP modules. Intacct, eLedger (who
eventually pulled the plug), and many others have
stepped up to the web-based accounting plate as well.
Unfortunately, no one has hit a home run.
In 2000, Peachtree changed the web-based
accounting game in a very interesting way. Peachtree added a
web-based module to its' flagship Peachtree Complete
Accounting product called Peachtree Web Accounting. Instead of
being a full blown web-based system, the user still maintains
the software and data on their own internal accounting system.
This ensures speed, control of the data, and no dependency on
the reliability of the Internet. The idea is simple. t
regularly scheduled intervals, Peachtree pushes a copy of it's
accounting data out to the web. This allows remote users to
access that copy of the data on the web (through password
protection) in order to produce reports, make inquiries, and
enter orders, etc. Any changes to this copy of the data on the
web are synchronized to the original Peachtree data files at
the next regularly scheduled syncing interval. hat an idea.
This is fantastic and the folks at Peachtree have indicated
that their pleased with the adoption of Peachtree Web
Accounting whose users now number more than 1,000.
Microsoft has since entered the game as well,
deploying Microsoft Small Business Manager which is a scaled
down version of Great Plains Dynamics in a web-based manner
similar to that of Peachtree Web Accounting. With version 1.0,
Microsoft is a legitimate threat, however they didn't get it
right. They need to add inventory functionality if they expect
to take off. Mark my words, Microsoft will get it right, and
they will get it right very fast.
The saga continues...more players will enter
this arena, some will succeed, some will not...stay tuned...
At this time, you may want to read my
article on Web-based Accounting
Software
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