Should you consider hosted or Software As a Service software applications for your nonprofit? There are a lot of conflicting and often inaccurate messages out there: They’re not secure! Use them – they’ll replace your IT staff! Perhaps they’ll change your life… or perhaps they’re evil. What’s the truth? We investigate.

Once upon a time, you could pretty much assume that when you bought a software application, it would come in a box and you would install it onto your computer.

Times have changed. Now there are a huge number of options. Software packages might still be simply installed onto a single computer, but they might also be installed onto a server and multiple staff desktop computers so that a number of people can use the software. Or, the programs might even be installed on your own Web server to be accessed by your staff over the Internet.

And there’s a whole other possibility these days: hosted software packages. …more from Idealware. Flickr photo credit: Leo Reynolds.