2009 – THE year for cloud accounting
As we enter 2009, there are few predictions you can make with confidence – except the old cliché that ‘everything will change’… However, one prediction we are confident about is that 2009 will be the year that Cloud Accounting really takes off. By which we mean, starts to gain market awareness, acceptance and share. Why? Well, because:
- a number of key players will be in the market with viable offerings that are proven (or will be through the year). Prominent amongst these will be Sage with SageLive and, of course, CODA with CODA 2go.
- the economic situation will play to the strengths of cloud computing, particularly for SMBs, with low capital requirements and relatively low running costs that can be turned on or off as the client requires.
- the general prominence and acceptance of cloud computing will continue, with Google, Salesforce and Microsoft all pushing forward the agenda with huge investment and new services being launched
All of these aspects are going to drive the market, we believe. The arrival of larger players including ourselves will add to the momentum already built up by smaller SaaS (sofware as a service) accounting start-ups who have been operating for some time but have had to battle on two fronts – getting users to accept putting their accounting data ‘in the cloud’ and getting them to trust relatively new, unknown companies and platforms. Combined with the wider market momentum behind cloud computing, fewer accountants will have issues with trusting cloud computing, and it will become another clear option for companies to consider when looking at their systems strategy. Roll on the New Year!
