Why Pay $$s to Xero When You Can Have Ubikwiti for Zero $$s?

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) March 2, 2009

Ubikwiti offers free, “no strings” software-as-a-service (SaaS) for SMBs – hosted on US-based Amazon.com servers – as an alternative to single-user, single company users of Xero accounting system.

Click here to find out more.

Ubikwiti’s announcement will save single-user Xero customers NZ$ 499 (US$ 255) per annum for the first year, and NZ$ 588 (US$ 300) per annum subsequently. Xero offers new signups a 30 days free trial period and a one-time discount of NZ$ 89 (US$ 45), but ONLY if customers pre-pay for twelve months.

According to Ubikwiti CEO Tim Loving, “Ubikwiti’s Online Software for single-user SMBs – now offered as a free “no strings” alternative to single-user Xero customers – is simple, intuitive and easy to use. Neither accounting knowledge nor technical programming skills are required to setup and customize the software.”

“Ubikwiti Online Software for SMBs, although free, does not skimp on features and functionalities. It has all the functionality needed to enable SMBs providing products and services to manage customers and customer-related activities, as well as vendors and vendor-related activities. Full financial reports are available, including Profit & Loss Report and Balance Sheet. A base time zone can be set to ensure consistency of reports and operations across multiple time zones.”

“Ubikwiti Online Software for SMBs screens, business forms and reports are easily and quickly customizable by SMB end-users by means of Ubikwiti’s business-user-friendly DIY-GUI toolkit. Application navigation settings are also customizable by end-users using Ubikwiti’s DIY-Configuration toolkit. The DIY-Configuration toolkit makes it easy to simplify the already simple, clean, easy-to-use Ubikwiti Online Software for SMBs by removing unnecessary components (replaceable at any time).”

“End-users can easily upgrade or add vertical market and other optional components and packages at any time from Ubikwiti’s Online U-KwikShop.”

In an otherwise complimentary post on Xero, Bevan Rudge wrote “The only thing Xero hasn’t got right is the platform. They wrote this from scratch on the .Net framework, and it shows in the many small but annoying bugs.”

“In contrast to vendor-proprietary platforms like the Microsoft .Net platform used by Xero,” said Tim Loving, “Ubikwiti’s architecture is based on Open, SOA-compliant, definition-based components. That means users don’t get locked-in to proprietary platforms.”

“In Ubikwiti, virtually everything can be customised on-the-fly by end-users to suit customer-specific business needs using our DIY-configuration and DIY-GUI toolkits. That includes country-specific and industry-specific business, accounting and sales tax needs (including New Zealand GST, Australian GST, UK VAT, as well as the multiplicity of sales taxes levied by US states and cities).”

He added, “While individual UK, NZ and Australian SMB customers can do that themselves as of now using our DIY toolkits, we can, subject to sufficient market interest, greatly simplify and shorten the customisation process by providing a free country-specific base template for SMBs, and even, free industry-specific base templates, including modifiable charts of accounts. The Open, SOA-compliant, definition-based architecture of our SaaS platform enables us to produce country-specific and industry-specific base templates within days.

In responding to queries relating to concerns of PaaS/SaaS customers raised by the recent demise of Coghead and the consequential problems for Coghead customers, Loving referred to a recent Ubikwiti blog post on the need for PaaS/SaaS customers to ask a few “caveat emptor” questions, such as:

Why Pay $$s to Xero When You Can Have Ubikwiti for Zero $$s?