Like, nobody sets out to build a page that will host ads. One builds the product and then later settles on a way to get revenue. I've always thought of Saas like this, just another potential business model to follow.
A lot of large companies however are so fed up with on-premise enterprise that they are willing to make the switch. That said, new cloud-based companies aren't making nearly the same profits that BigEnterprise Inc is on their old systems. SaaS has thus become a keyword for these smaller cloud-based "disruptors", even if it is technically possible for BigEnterprise Inc to move to the cloud.
I work in Enterprise Software and speak to 100s of C level leadership. People aren't "fed up" with on-premise enterprise. They aren't refusing to switch due to it being difficult.
I mean, this is an interesting conversation we could take in a lot of directions, but I wanted to clarify that I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here about enterprise software.
Same is true of SaaS, it's not a keyword for these smaller cloud-based software. It's a literal description of your ownership of the service.
You are right that there is less margin in cloud vs. on-premise, but that's true of BigEnterprise's software and offerings as well.
What you're saying fundamentally makes sense as a theory, but in practice I think the reasons and thoughts just have different outcomes.
And this isn't just software, this is also for hosting the hardware as a whole.
Do you happen to know if the 'no one gets fired for buying IBM' attitude has changed significantly in big enterprise markets ?
Huge.
I can imagine it's even more so for things like financials.
Is this anecdotal or is there some number behind this? When I was developing internal tools for massive companies, cloud was never an option. Red tape is definitely a given with large companies, but some of the red tape were a necessity to meet ISO certification and other regulatory needs.