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For many organizations, the fact that it is free is less important than the fact that they already have Office. If a team in a mid-to-large company wants to us
by abtinf 6y ago
For many organizations, the fact that it is free is less important than the fact that they already have Office.
If a team in a mid-to-large company wants to use Airtable, they will have to spend a lot of time championing the process--audits, vetting, bidding, legal, data management, and on and on and on.
If they subscribe to Office365, they've already gone through this process. It will either be enabled by default, or be subject to a much less stringent review before IT flips the switch.
Put another way: money (at least the sums involved for most SaaS) is the least important objection a customer might have to adoption.
Side note: this is also part of the reason why Excel is so popular, even though many executives are aware of its short-commings and might wish for something more integrated. Even if they have the budget, it is excruciating trying to onboard a SaaS offering.
- stevedh 6y agoAbsolutely agree with everything here. But I'm curious what you're considering as an Excel replacement? For anything more sophisticated than Google Sheet's can handle I can't think of a single alternative off-hand.
- abtinf 6y agoApologies, that part of my post was unclear. I didn’t mean replacements for Excel itself. I meant specific vertical applications that are meant to replace common excel use cases. I’ve been part of efforts to evaluate tools like Wrike and Aha! as replacements for gnarly excel spreadsheets. A single meeting of the stakeholders (managers of affected teams, VPs, high level engineers) to consider some aspect of the purchase decision cost more in salary and opportunity cost than a year of the SaaS subscription. Actual adoption, implementation, and training turned the cost of the product into a rounding error.