Bringing business to the cloud

With so many acronyms being invented because of the "cloud" we'd like to explain what SAAS or Software as a Service means and give an example of a splendid use of the concept for auto dealers. At the end of this blog post we have a link to a story on just one dealer who has adopted this solution. In a survey that we did at one of my companies, Microsoft Cloud Services, we started to scan dealership technology and survey how many P.C.s are on the lot inclusive of laptops as well as details like which operating system and version of Microsoft Office they have installed because in our studies the two were a requirement to get business done.  We also asked how many unique email addresses are being utilized and what those email addresses are being utilized for.  We also asked which provider they used for email services as well as how many mobile devices are in use at the dealership. We have the surveyed information from thousands of dealerships from Digital Dealer, Driv...

Dealerships were amongst the first community businesses to be computerized. So why are most dealers having such a hard time with e-mails, spam, viruses and other computer issues?  Dealerships are essentially behind because they were so far ahead. Dealer management systems were developed long before the technology reached the masses — long before there were PCs, e-mail and today’s plethora of PDAs and smartphones. Today’s dealership looks nothing like the dealership of the past. Remember when there used to be satellite dishes (lots of dishes — one for each franchise) on the roofs of dealerships and dumb terminals on the desks? That was how we communicated with the DMS and OEMs. Remember the day of servers underneath a desk or in a closet next to the reams of paper and extra toilet paper? Unfortunately, this early  computerization delayed the utilization of PCs and certain common programs....

When the rumors became reality this morning about Dominion releasing a DMS at NADA this year I was delighted!  I had multiple people email me, call me, tweet and even text me asking if we knew about the "BIG NEWS!" and they all asked how I feel about it. And then I read Ralph Paglia's post.  What an absolute pollution of the industry some posts have become and this one in my humble opinion tops the list as the most poorly written blog post in history.  If you're going to get all emotional and sprinkle the internet with your bathroom opinions, do it there.  Why would I say something this bold?  Allow me a moment to explain the reality of what is going on instead of the garbage you might read elsewhere. Microsoft doesn't build DMS systems, they empower their partners who have earned Microsoft's respect.  The relationship between Microsoft and Dominion is simple, Dominion is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network.  This means that Do...