Increasingly it seems that SaaS (Software as a Service) is becoming mainstream. Recently, i had the opportunity to hear Phil Wainewright on our campus, Phil said that 2008 was the year of SaaS. Phil articulated the confluence of business and technological reasons that are coming to a head to make 2008 the year of SaaS. Like other Silicon Valley folks, i have seen SaaS evolve from ASP to its current incarnation. I have even had the opportunity to work with Oracle's first foray into ASP (labeled BusinssOnline at the time), and at startups where we tried to reach the mid-market with back-end ASP apps (like PeopleSoft). The combination of hearing Phil speak, and my added new responsibility (working with SaaS partners, and heading the SaaS program office at my employer), made me think if folks still grapple with the question to SaaS or not to SaaS.
What are the reasons that make the question - To SaaS or not to SaaS irrelevant? The answer is that outsourcing (people and services) is becoming a more common and established business practice. Companies are forced into focusing on their core competencies in trying to maximize revenues for themselves. As a customer, enterprises are looking to do more with their existing limited budgets, realizing that they either cannot keep up with the technological sophistication required to maintain software on premise, nor want to deal with questions around Security, capital spending, or wait until the the consultants have finished integrating the various pieces of software, before reaping the promise of the technology.
Vendors are also finding that they are missing out on a big revenue stream by not offering a SaaS version to their customers. Software vendors are finding that with the advances in SOA and security, integrating their software with other applications is becoming easier and are now able to offer a compelling integrated solution to their customers, able to monetize their offerings much more quickly, increase the barrier to exit for their customers, and have a predictable revenue stream coming in. What's not to like?
I hope 2008 is the year of SaaS as Phil says, however its clear that customers and vendors are not asking whether to SaaS or not, but rather "how to".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Milan,
I agree it is really "not the question", moreover the question is when and how. I too have watched the progression over the years, however until now there wasn't a compelling (mature) platform for partners (ISV's, SI's, etc) to adopt in order to bring solutions to market quickly. Now that there is a platform, clearly it should be obvious to interested parties that upwards of 80% of time consuming and dissuasive development work is complete and all they need to do is bring their domain expertise and plan to the platform and get their service to market rapidly. So to answer the "when".... I think the time is clearly now for those innovative and nimble ISV's to really make a statement and propel themselves into a market in which they never had the capacity to do so at this level. And for the how?.... I am sure program plans have already been drafted in anticipation for a platform to be prime time, and with a little help and direction in adaptation from the platform vendor, these programs can start and come to fruition sooner than later. In the end, I think this will truly be a win-win-win situation for the ISV (partnering to accelerate development, provide an annuity stream), the Customer (saving cost and headaches by adopting these services) and the platform provider (volume partners means satisfied partners and fair dollars for all). It’ll be fun to watch and see if Phil's assumption for 2008 is accurate!
Regards,
Blaine
Post a Comment