On Demand

Wow, even Joel Spolsky is introducing hosted applications. That’s pretty crazy — not just because of what the application is, but also because (at least in my mind), Spolsky has always represented the Old Guard.

The application is FogzBugs, Spolsky’s company’s defect-tracking software. What’s that you say? Yeah, the idea of storing your software company’s defect database on someone else’s servers is kinda scary to me too, at least in a commercial environment. I guess at some point the decision to outsource defect-tracking comes down to a cost-benefit analysis in which you weigh the cost saved by not paying in-house IT to maintain your defect system against the potential damages caused should your critical data leak out due to either deliberate action or indirect negligence on the part of the vendor.

I suppose this makes sense — hosted CRM and other business process tool services have been available for some time, so this service is no different. I guess in my mind I equate code with valuable company secret, but I wonder how long it’ll be before we see hosted source code control for closed-source, commercial applications, and how long it’ll be before larger companies buy into these kinds of services.

I guess companies would also always have the recourse of taking legal action against a provider who might leak out sensitive data — this leads to all kinds of interesting scenarios. Data malpractice insurance? Much like bandwidth and hosting costs, this sort of thing would further drive software trends in favor of serious businesses over sole proprietorships and Mom and Pop shops…