While in this blog I am a strong supporter of Software as a Service, I think we need to consider the down side to Software as a Service, as well.

Over the last weekend, Microsoft's own services hiccuped and many operating systems were rendered useless in teh fact that the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage servers would not confirm a genuine Windows program. John Dvorak in "Don't Trust the Servers" points out the weakness in the link of all software services - the servers for the software service need to be up all the time otherwise you are locked out from using your own data.

In an article "Larger Implications of WGA Meltdown" the author suggests that there are further and more worrying aspects to software in general, let alone software as a service - such as, you do not own the software, you cannot change the software, and you cannot hold the manufacturer responsible for the working of the software.

So it seems that there are down sides to the use of any software, as a service or when you "purchase a copy".

My opinion is that Software as Service is the way to go, but as in any other situation, you need to take a backup of any data you build. Then when the servers go down you can still operate as you have a backup of the data to work with. Ideally the backup should be on another server to which you should be able to save the data, such as documents you are working on and be able to work on these documents from any other computer.

Backups - the single most important thing you should do to safeguard your data, in a Software as a Service setting or not.