With all major players in the software industry transitioning to the Cloud in some manner, the vast majority of new software companies entering the market are doing so as “providers of Cloud services”. As a result, the $368 billion software industry is changing forever, and packaged software and perpetual license revenue is in permanent decline.
When implementing business solutions using commercial or third-party solutions, what’s the best software delivery option? Should you look for a solution managed by the application provider? Or do you buy a license and implement it in-house, using your own staff to implement, install, and manage the solution? Of course, the answer is “it depends”. In order to determine what would work best for you, the first step is assessing the options against your priorities as a business. Here are some considerations:
As an ISV, moving your application into the Cloud and offering it as a service is no trivial task. How software is supplied and managed for the desktop is very different than as a service. The usage and requirements of network connectivity, scaling, authentication and authorization, as examples, are all subtly different from the Enterprise model.
Once you get past the foundation of how to supply your application as a service, you need to solve the additional problems of authorization and utilization; or “Who has access to what?” and “How much are they using?”