Ten ISV Traps to Avoid on the Path to SaaS Success

Phil WainewrightCEO, Procullux Ventures

A timeline of SaaS failure

1998

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How do I get to SaaS?• Defining your strategy

– Seeking advice, business objectives, product definition

• Laying the foundations– Infrastructure choices, service delivery

management, business models• Go-to-market

– Market assessment, partner selection, sales and marketing techniques

• Journey’s end

1. Well-meant advice

2. Ignoring the Web

• The Web brings new ways to interact with others– Online selling and service– Collaborative development– Vendor ecosystems

• Explore and understand network effects– Shared services– Mashups – Aggregate data– The long tail

• Three monkeys take on SaaS– Adobe: See no SaaS– SAP: Hear no SaaS– Microsoft: Speak no SaaS

• Cloud deflation– Force.com: $12-18 per user per month– Bungee Labs: $3.60 per user per month

3. Cannibalisation/commoditisation

4. The wrong platform

• How much multi-tenancy?– Shared infrastructure– Shared application server– Shared database

Security Log

SaaS Applicatio

n

Identity Manageme

nt

Usage Tracking

CRM

Call Center Support System

Management Log

SaaS Applicatio

n

SaaS Applicatio

n

SaaS Applicatio

n

Performance

Availability

Security

SLA Monitoring

Provisioning

Management Agent

Access Control

MeteringOrder

Management

Service Delivery Platform Runtime

Billing

Management Alerts

Credit: Gianpaolo Carraro & Fred Chong, Microsoft Architecture strategy team

4. The wrong platform

• How much multi-tenancy?– Shared infrastructure– Shared application server– Shared database

• Virtualization vs consolidation

• Time-to-market vs building for scale

5. Undervaluing trust

5. Undervaluing trust

6. Thinking like a software vendor

• It’s a service, not a toolkit

• Deliver&

• Price

… like a service provider

7. Market projection

8. Leaving it to partners• Channel partners

– Traditional– Non-traditional

• Platform partners– Hosting and utility platforms– Development/deployment platforms

• Provider partners– Application vendors– Business service providers

9. Build it and they will come

• The Web is a tool, not a panaceaAutomated sales processesOnline trials and pilotsContinuous prospect interactionBetter marketing feedback

… but enterprise buying is still person-to-person

10. Expecting a destination

Q&A

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