Cool product. Tough market. It will be essential to focus on small business targets. Too bad the article centred on competing with the big guys. I don't thi

Cool product. Tough market. It will be essential to focus on small business targets. Too bad the article centred on competing with the big guys. I don't think that's where the easy money is at. I'm currently in the middle of an ADP implementation for our company (120 employees), so I have a bit of insight into this. Once you reach a certain threshold of costs associated with payroll, it's very hard to beat the big players: >"These legacy companies rely on selling to other enormous enterprise clients whose opportunity cost of switching services provides a sufficient lockin" I don't know about this. How am I locked in? Sure, there is some labour associated with moving employee files from one provider to the next, but you have to do the same to get your data into ZenPayroll. ADP required me to fill out a spreadsheet with the required employee information. Once the data is in, you flip the switch and you're up and running on the new system. I don't see any lock-in whatsoever. I still have my employee information spreadsheet, ready to pass to the next competitor. What am I missing? >"Faced with expensive and complex software options" Not really complex. We worked with an ADP "implementation specialist" to design the earnings/deductions rules (customized to our specific needs), which took about a week. Now we enter hours in a text box, and adjust parameters as needed. Sure, the interface isn't pretty, but we're talking about tab-ing through text boxes and entering numbers. Can't be much more intuitive. >"With ZenPayroll, companies can handle the standard functions of adding employee hours, overtime pay, bonuses, reimbursements, garnishments, benefits, etc., and issuing periodic payments via check or direct deposit." This is standard for payroll systems. >"Where ZenPayroll really sticks its head above the crowd is in the long term tracking and management for both employees and employers. On the platform..." Standard features, at least with ADP. We made the decision to switch from manual payroll to a payroll service when the cost/benefit made sense. I can understand that that threshold is far, far lower for the multitude of 1-50 employee sized businesses out there. ZenPayroll looks good there. But the big players can offer something I can only assume ZP can't: support. We have two agents, ready to handle whatever crazy questions our staff has. That's vitally important to an enterprise. Although the author sees payroll as "evil", we're talking about other people's livelihood. It's not to be taken lightly. I don't see one mention of support in the article. For $30/month, there's a market, and a big one. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the big players have nothing to offer. And they won't be easily displaced.