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by blazespin 3675 days ago
The problem with maintaining the install is that it really slows down your deployment of feature and evolving the ecosystem. It's not just a matter of extra know how. SaaS is more than just ease of use, it's a very very rapid and competive delivery of new features day in day out. Companies are adopting SaaS not just because they don't want to maintain the infrastructure / install software. They're adopting SaaS because they want the latest and greatest so they can compete better against their colleagues that don't have the latest and greatest.
2 comments
mattlutze 3675 days ago
Vendors have responded to this challenge for a while with Long-Term Support builds to complement the standard product cycle. Get a major set of features that your on-prem customers want, freeze the features, and keep 12, 18, 24 months between major feature updates.

Most companies of any complexity are going to be unable to integrate into their business processes all of your latest and greatest features as fast as the fictional SaaS dev team can release them (then revise, then revise again).

For most of these businesses (just read, most businesses), your software will be less of a time suck if it has a moderate release cycle with a predictable, well-advertised lead out to new changes, allowing IT departments to evangelize and pre-educate on the new capabilities.

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emodendroket 3674 days ago
Yes, that model works, but it is going to use up resources that simply will not be an issue if you're running entirely as a service.
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jaggederest 3674 days ago
You just have to charge enough to make it worth it.
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emodendroket 3673 days ago
I guess so, but the whole point here is that there are a lot of hidden costs you might not have considered if you've operated 100% SaaS.
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jaggederest 3673 days ago
My wild-ass-guess starting point is at least $2.5m/y with a 5 year commitment to make it anywhere near worth it.
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dingaling 3675 days ago
> so they can compete better against their colleagues that don't have the latest and greatest

But there's nothing exclusive about SaaS and often our rivals' logos are already on the SaaS vendor's pitch-deck

Buy for equivalence, build for advantage. SaaS provides out-of-the-box solutions for basic functionality like HR or payroll and allows a company to deploy its programmers where they can build an advantage over their competitors in the domain of business logic.

SaaS is the new MS Word; just buy whatever everyone uses and get on with using that to do the things that actually make money.

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