Are We Hearing the Death Rattle of On-Premise Software?

Lately, I’ve been somewhat bemused when I see a small subset of the SaaS buzz that is registering out on the fringes of the blogosphere.

There seems to be an undercurrent of negative sentiment toward the on-demand world these days, and while I’m bemused, I’m not surprised.

I don’t want to confer validation on any of these ridiculous statements by calling them out specifically – though Jeff Kaplan (founder of THINKstrategies) does a very nice job of echoing some of my sentiments in this insightful article that was recently published on SeekingAlpha.

You’ve got people predicting the imminent demise of the SaaS market. Some folks would describe a prediction like that as ‘fuzzy thinking’ – and they’re half right; it’s fuzzy, but it’s not thinking.

The SaaS market is expanding like a balloon at the moment, which is why analysts are quoting growth rates of more than 100% in the next two years.

There are other recent examples of people attempting to throw water on the SaaS flame, but in my mind this fire will not be quelled – in fact, we’re not far from it becoming a raging inferno. However, this hasn’t stopped the haters from hating.

Is this not the *definition* of a ‘disruptive technology’? “…a technological innovation, product, or service that uses a "disruptive" strategy…to overturn the existing dominant technologies or status quo products in a market.”

HOW LOW-END DISRUPTION OCCURS OVER TIME (source: Wikipedia)

That’s what we’re seeing at the moment, I think – the ‘status quo’ vendors in the software space have become roused from their slumber and are reacting angrily to this challenge to their supremacy. So let’s call it what it is: the Death Rattle of the on-premise software world.

"If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel
cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business."

--Henry David Thoreau, ’Walden’(1854)