Software, such as ‘Salesforce Automation Applications’, have, in the past, typically been offline applications due to the need for them to be used remotely. However, such applications struggled to meet the business process requirements of many sales forces in that they failed to share data and business processes between team members, they relied on the sales person to connect at regular periods before a case could be processed and they carried a high maintenance overhead. As a result, online solutions, like Salesforce.com, have become extremely successful and have now rolled out to major institutions across the globe.

However, due to the heavy legislative burden, the UK Financial Services has its own unique characteristics and a belief that ‘generic’ industry applications such as Salesforce would not work. There is still much debate as to whether online solutions will take off in Financial Services, buta quick review of the market shows that most vendors have moved away from the supply of pure offline solutions to either pure online solutions (e.g. IntelliFlo), or more often a hybrid solution, where the client database is online but the advisor can ‘check out’ a client to work on offline.

In studying the uptake of these solutions, it is interesting to note that the main advocate of the online world – IntelliFlo – is also arguably one of the most successful of the current vendors, with clients such as The Money Portal and Thinc having recently signed up to use their solution. Traditionally their success came from the sales of their Back Office system, but this has extended as they have enhanced their Front Office capability, with many of the organisations also using their online sales tools too.

Indeed, despite some detractors, the world appears to be going online with more and more recognising the benefits of a SaaS model.

- Microsoft have stated that the release of Windows after Version 7 (next major update) will be last ‘thick OS’
- Google Chrome is the foundation for a browser-based operating system
- Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Apollo, AJAX etc, are extending UI and operation on local machine
- What were once desktop-only apps, are migrating online, eg Adobe Photoshop
- The Web 2.0 approach promotes application mashing, which is difficult to achieve with thick apps

In financial services the debate still runs on… and on… with some big offline vendors sticking to their principles and pushing the need for offline working. At the same time, the online vendors dismiss these prospects/clients who call for offline tools as old fashioned. In fairness, the debate is still a valid one and those vendors that offer both options still have a market edge in many cases. The diagram below illustrates the arguments from both sides. Who wins the argument will be decided case-by-case according to business models and cultures within the organizations.

AT8 has launched today a series of informative factsheets, AT8 InfoBlogs, on the core propositions of the leading solutions’ vendors operating in the core UK Life, Pensions & Investment market sectors.

They are designed to describe the key attributes of each vendor, provide an outline of their proposition and their key target market and customers.

It is our aim to keep the information up-to-date and so check back regularly to refresh your knowledge.

The documents can be found here: http://www.at8-group.com/library/library.html

It’s been two weeks, now, since reporting about my geek-fest weekend with the installation of Microsoft’s new beta operating system Windows 7, the replacement for Windows Vista.

Those that know me well will be surprised when I say “I’m impressed”, as I have a tendency not to express myself in those terms very often – but I’m impressed.

I’ve not managed to find an application that I use that doesn’t run on Microsoft’s new baby and my PC has been running for days on end without a hitch (I’m touching a very large piece of wood, whilst writing this, by the way). Even older pre-Windows XP applications run without issue – it’s very refreshing not to have to wrestle with my computer just to get an old but familiar application to run.

One of my favourite changes in Windows 7 is the way the Taskbar now operates, which allows space for your most used applications combined with the ability to jump directly to an open document.

In some ways, the new Taskbar arrangement is reminiscent of the Mac OS X Dock, but it doesn’t quite operate in the same way and lacks some of the flexibility, but nonetheless I think it works well and reduces the amount of screen clutter.

The Windows 7 beta release also contains the new Internet Explorer 8 – a new version of which has just been released (see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx) – this new release candidate is available to download now, although those running the Windows 7 beta are going to have to wait a little longer for it to be incorporated into a Windows Update.

So, I’ll plough on with my test; let’s just hope that when Microsoft finally lets the new creation onto the streets, it retains all the great features and robustness that I’m enjoying currently.