The one-time purchase of software on a CD from the 2000s is thankfully not the norm anymore as this system didn’t allow developers to continuously improve their product offering by fixing bugs and developing new features for users according to the needs of the market. For example, if you were to have bought version 8.1 you could upgrade to 8.2 but not to 9.0 or above.
SaaS is a new term used to refer to a monthly or yearly subscription to a software service. In today's world, SaaS is set up so that clients other than receiving the product, also have access to free and recurring updates, user support, backups, and other additional perks.
As a SaaS user, you can expect to receive the following offerings:
- New features and updates
- Hosting
- Backup
- Support from our team of experts
Users of software services in the offshore industry don’t need to worry about backups, bug fixes, where to host the software, installation of security updates, verification of the calculations, server upgrades, etc.
If you need to integrate SaaS products with different systems, you can easily do so by using Webhooks.
Zapier is a popular tool that can be used as it offers integration with most software out there like Google Sheets, Microsoft, etc. Users can manually send data when they click a specific button, or if they want, automatically, every time a scenario has been updated (in the case of offshore).
YouWind Platform
It might be tempting to start developing your own software for your company, and it might be a good idea if you have the team, the time, and the funds to do so.
In the beginning, a project like this looks like it might be easy to complete, and you might look at our software and think “We could easily do that”.
The first thing that you should consider is that a project like this requires many hands, meaning that a considerable number of the members of your in-house development team will be working solely on developing this platform, and other tasks that they would have been working on will be set aside.
In many cases, you will find that you need to hire an external team, for this, you will need expert software engineers (usually back-end engineers and front-end engineers), product managers, UX designers, wind engineers, system administrators, GIS experts, and more.
At this point, you might be able to imagine the cost of this project and what sort of product you will have in one year. Would it be useful enough to justify the cost?
Imagine all the time spent discussing if a certain button should be here or there or if it should do this or that. It is very easy to underestimate software development when you look at good software that does the job.
At the end of the day, the question of whether you should use external software or develop your own boils down to whether a company has the resources (that could otherwise be designated to the primary focus of the company) and human capital to deploy on such a project.
If you want to learn more about how Youwind can help you in your next development project, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Jesus Ramos
Anna Rivera Jové