Epicor Eagle on-site versus cloud?  The software delivery model has been changing over the past 15 years with more and more providers moving from a traditional software licensing model to a subscription model.  This shift has been enabled by the advent of reliable, fast Internet connections and the cloud.

In general, this shift has been a good thing for customers:  1) The large up-front capital investment in a software license that you own is being replaced by a monthly subscription payment that is often easier to afford and certainly easier to justify to ownership or management – at least initially.  2) The headache of buying, housing and maintaining computer server hardware is avoided.  3) The work of installing patches and upgrades to the software shifts from the buyer to the provider.

However, there are also some disadvantages:  1) If you already bought a perpetual license to your Eagle software then you purchased an asset.  In other words you “own” the ability to use software forever.  To get patches and updates to the software, Epicor requires you to pay a monthly maintenance fee.  If you stop paying that fee you still own the software, but its functionality is frozen in-time.  As you convert to Epicor Cloud you are throwing away the initial investment you made in the software license in-favor of the convenience factors listed previously.  2) You are giving up control of uptime, and the timing and the pace of upgrades.  3) You have increased risk of higher costs.  It is generally accepted throughout the software industry that monthly maintenance will never be more than 20% of the original license cost.  There is no such standard when it comes to a subscription model.  

There is a third alternative to consider as well:  You can have the Eagle server you own hosted at a local managed services provider (MSP).  If you already own your Eagle software license this choice preserves the value of that asset.  Your on-going costs are contained to monthly maintenance plus the hosting fee.  You retain control of uptime and the timing of upgrades and in most cases, the MSP will do them for you.  

These decisions require careful consideration and planning.  At DilSe.IT we have the privilege of serving more than 40 Ace Hardware store customers in our 6 state region.  Business owners, no matter what their background, often must become their own IT staff.  DilSe.IT can be your outsourced Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to advise and guide you to the right decisions for your business.  To learn more, contact us at sales@dilse.it #SoftwareLicense #SoftwareSubscription #DilSe