The Death of SaaS I'm going to come right out and say it,
I think the term SaaS is going to disappear. My reasoning is threefold.
1. What do you call Web apps and Phone apps? Do you really call your web apps Saas? Ok, so maybe you're a member of 5% of the population. In my day to day, customers and consumers that I interact with do not call web apps Saas. Instead they'll say, "I do my books with Quickbooks Online or with Outright.com". Despite marketers best efforts it does not seem that SaaS is picking up adoption. I think it's perhaps that the term sounds a little different but moreover, it's because of the deconstruction of software into smaller bite sized apps.
2. The term SaaS has not entered the lexicon for college students I use my little sister as a litmus test for personal marketing studies; she's a member of the generation that uses computers for everything. She views her online Microsoft Exchange as E-mail and online Word and Excel as simple software. She has no clue what the term SaaS means. I know that you can easily say "that's completely anecdotal" and really it is. However, in conversations over the past year I haven't seen an increase in awareness of SaaS in the general population, only in early adopters.
3. Google Chrome's use of the word Apps In our last post we discussed the rise of Google Chrome in the browser wars. I really believe that if the term SaaS dies it's autopsy will reveal that it was killed by Google's App store. Google has noticeably excluded the term SaaS when describing their apps store. My prediction is that Google's app store will inspire clones by Firefox, Microsoft, and Safari. In order to compete they will use similar marketing terms. Why use the term SaaS and risk confusing your potential customer base with what it is you offer?
Do you disagree with the idea that SaaS is on the way out? Please let us know in the comments below!