Software subscription models
ZDNet has a critical article on software-as-a-service business models and takes particular pride in poking at Microsoft's attempts at changing from the traditional perpetual software license model. Their comment on salesforce.com not being a software-as-a-service model because it does not actually deliver software, but rather just functionality, is also an interesting nuance I've not seen before. Under that definition, no ASP could be considered providing software as a service.
Comments
... thereby dramatically reducing the impact of the SAAS definition. If you don't include the ASP model examples, is there even one other example that counts?
Posted by: Chris | October 30, 2005 12:24 AM
I think so. There are some companies that have successfully built desktop application businesses using a limited-time subscription licensing model. One realm I'm personally familiar with is advertising/media buying and selling software. I think it emerged this way and was accepted by customers because media research data is licensed by subscription only, so it did not strike anyone as odd that the software to use with that data would fall under the same type of non-perpetual licensing.
Posted by: Chris Thompson | October 30, 2005 12:40 PM