ZD's random thoughts

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has become a pretty standard model for application delivery in both business and consumer markets. While it is nice that you do not have to download and install software on your local machine, it is a PITA when it is not working. This morning I tried to file my tax return for 2008 on one of the most popular tax preparation website -TaxAct, I was told the service is “temporarily offline”. I understand it is getting closer to Apr 15th, and people are rushing to the tax preparation sites to file their tax. Still a bummer when you can do nothing other than waiting the service to be back, which is completely not under your control.

This reminds me of another story. A company provided SaaS solutions to business clients. It happened every Friday that production servers had some sort of outage because they could not handle the surging load. Needless to say, customers were pissed-off because they were paying big bucks for the qualify of service.

After the annoucement by Google yesterday, Google Voice finally came to my Grand Central account. I saw a lot of improvements from the old Grand Central interface. Things I like:

• UI improvements: things look like other Google products such as Gmail and Google Docs.
• New features:
  • SMS: now your Google Voice number works like a mobile phone, which can send and receive SMSs.
  • Voicemail transcripts, especially when you do not have time to dial in and listen to your voice mail. It may not be that accurate though.
  • International calling.

Overall, I am impressed by this upgrade and I will continue to use my Grand Central Google Voice number.