What is the difference between SaaS that does not pay on demand and being a rogue?

I have read and written articles about SaaS, and met and chatted with some SaaS entrepreneurs, but I feel more and more deeply uneasy. This uneasiness comes from the very first question - what are the opportunities for SaaS?

Leaving aside foreign markets, as far as the domestic market is concerned, there is currently no SaaS company that can take advantage of it. Everyone is in the growth stage, but they also have the "Troubles of Young Werther". Although SaaS is an important layer of cloud computing, it is not SaaS that only comes after the existing cloud computing. If you must find a "father" for SaaS, ASP is more suitable, because the concepts of SaaS and ASP are basically similar, both are based on "asaService", and even focus on the concept of "traditional software subversive". But for many people, ASP is already a relatively unfamiliar concept, because this ASP was basically hung on the wall in 2006. At that time, cloud computing had just begun to enter the world on its own.

The rise of cloud computing has brought another golden brand to the enterprise software market - SaaS. However, judging from the current content covered by SaaS, it is nothing more than OA, CRM, ERP, data management, etc., which are all familiar in the market. , is also the most stable market for giants. It is very difficult for some entrepreneurs to get a share of this market. On the other hand, traditional IT service companies do not really understand SaaS, understand "cloud", and use data backup. For example, inspired by cloud computing, traditional data backup has been linked to several cloud storage nodes, and Sun Erniang's business has been started by branding it as cloud backup. These traditional companies didn't even change the bottles, they just changed the labels. They just hope that the "cloud" will come slower and they can cultivate their own "private land" for a few more years.

The so-called revolution must be when one model replaces another model, or when a new technical field replaces an old technical field and creates a new technical category, opening up a new technical market. If SaaS will be a revolution in traditional software, then it must refer to the business model represented by SaaS, which is pay-as-you-go!

Under the Internet, SaaS that does not pay on demand is a rogue. Some traditional software companies will say without shame: The implementation of SaaS cannot be aimed at reducing costs. Considering the huge benefits brought by new services, a higher investment is still very worthwhile. This is really a joke. The ultimate mission and goal of ERP and CRM is to improve management efficiency and reduce management costs for enterprises. The 2B market has always been characterized by high competition, disorder, and low profits, causing these companies to quickly label themselves SaaS in order to gain greater bargaining power.

Looking back at the development of ASP, it is not difficult to conclude that the reasons for its failure can be roughly divided into: 1. Insufficient user trust (financial departments in foreign countries can also be outsourced); 2. Uncertainty of long-term development; 3. Lack of market traction; These three reasons can be summarized in one word: too advanced! These three problems are also the most important problems faced by SaaS at the beginning. Fortunately, there is cloud computing. If there is no concept of cloud computing to support it, , the SaaS bubble may have burst long ago. The core concept of cloud computing "distribution on demand" and the maturity of the current network environment, development conditions, and usage awareness have given SaaS unlimited room for imagination. Similar to data storage companies Qiniu and Ucloud, data backup companies such as Duo Backup are all representatives of this kind of pay-as-you-go-payment based on specific usage traffic; in addition, traditional software overlords like Microsoft have become more popular after Nadella took charge. , its software business has begun to shift to a free value-added model. Note that this is not a purely free version. On April 23, Microsoft released its first-quarter financial report. CEO Nadella expressed the hope that all Microsoft's software businesses will shift to an annual payment and long-term subscription model instead of one-time software transactions.

As a trend, cloud computing and SaaS have made the one-time payment era in the enterprise market a thing of the past. But this does not mean that the free era has arrived. The pay-as-you-go model of cloud computing will become an important opportunity for the transformation of the enterprise market at this stage. It would be a pity if you cannot seize it.