In the software industry, Onyx is attempting to help the industry transition from buying products and services to renting them instead by joining forces with German software giant SAP. Onyx has been looking into the potential of making products like this available on a per-use basis and says that SAP is the first of many potential deals that will make these types of products and services more efficient for businesses.
According to CEO of Onyx Neil Stephenson, “More people are wanting to buy IT on a per-user basis now. Rather than own it, they just want to rent it. There’s a market shift going on here. More companies are wanting these products to be rented out of a data center off-premises. We own five data centers ourselves in the UK, so that’s a major differentiator.”
This deal with SAP will allow Onyx to be the first in the United Kingdom to provide SAP Business One as software-as-a-service. Onyx will then adapt the software to the client’s specifications and the host system. Business One allows you to track a business minute-to-minute in areas like distribution, financials and sales for a fixed monthly fee.
According to Rich Phillips, SAP’s Director of Channel, “Geared to organisations with limited IT resources, SAP Business One is an integrated solution that can help small businesses get the synergy they need across different business functions. The software is available as a hosted package enabling smaller companies to run the solution on a laptop instead of a server.”
Stephenson added, “It’s something we’ve been looking at for a little while and the technology is now at a stage that works efficiently. People are already renting software applications. It’s a change in terms of the market we’re operating in, which has traditionally been dominated by people who invest in technology to put in their centers. The change is partly economic, partly due to the increased flexibility of business, and partly to do with improvements in connectivity.”
“If you’re a business of reasonable size,” he added, “you’ll find renting more efficient than buying. We think we can deliver this right across the UK, and we think it can provide growth, new jobs and new customers and a new way of doing things.”
Source: nebusiness – Onyx hoping to capitalize on IT rental
