More and more companies, especially SMEs, are discovering that keeping a quickly installed PHP application (e.g., a CMS for their own homepage) up to date or fixing known security vulnerabilities in a timely manner is more demanding than initially expected.
Typo3, Magento, WordPress, Joomla… popular PHP/MySQL-based web applications are, of course, easy to “install,” and even an inexperienced user quickly experiences their first sense of achievement on the web. However, few are pleased when the subsequent setup of plugins, extensions, etc., requires hours of reading and configuration work… Or if an old security vulnerability is exploited to deface a homepage or, worse, steal important data, it can end up costing a significant amount of money.
Fortunately, there are so-called managed hosting providers who take this work off your hands, ensuring that the application runs smoothly and that all these tedious administrative tasks (updates/configuration) are handled without any customer intervention. The expertise of a specialist should be particularly valued for online applications — the pace of development on the web is so rapid that only these specialists can maintain the state of the art in the long run.
Admittedly, the price of a hosted application or the Software as a Service model is higher than that of a simple web space package — if you only compare the numbers. However, if you compare the overall performance and the resulting efficiency (allowing the customer to focus on their core business), you quickly reach a clear conclusion: anyone running a business cannot afford to ignore Software as a Service — because time is money!
