SaaS: A Love-Hate Relationship for Enterprise Software Vendors

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has recently gained significant popularity as it is perceived as a disruptive trend with the potential to reshape the whole software industry. While the positive effects of SaaS on the software market, e.g. additional revenues for software providers and higher flexibility for software customers, prevail in the current discussion in academics and the industry, incumbent software vendors still struggle with defining their future on-demand business model and with setting up their SaaS model right. The financial crisis and the current downturn have recently been fueling the discussion around customers moving to SaaS faster, increasing the pressure on software companies to take a stand regarding on-demand software delivery models and the need to gain traction in that new market segment.