Although the fashion for putting '2.0' after everything is beginning to grate, don't let that stop you from reading this new Sandhill.com article: Get ready for SaaS 2.0. The author is Bill McNee of Saugatuck Technology, who has seized on SaaS 2.0 as a label for all the good things that the leaders in on-demand applications are doing today — and the corollary is that SaaS 1.0 becomes the dismissive term for all the things that people have done wrong in the past.
The core defining characteristic that he identifies in SaaS 2.0 is one that I've highlighted in previous postings, and also dovetails neatly with my previous post on the user experience. Here's what he says:
"Secure, flexible and efficient business processes and workflow ... SaaS 2.0 goes well beyond today's SaaS business drivers, which have focused on cost-effective software delivery. SaaS 2.0 is about helping users transform their business workflow and processes, and the way they do business."
Therefore, don't look to SaaS applications to simply replicate today's enterprise applications in a hosted format. SaaS 2.0, he says, will "provide a next-generation business management platform that competes with, and in many cases, replaces, traditional enterprise applications." This is absolutely spot on, in my view.
He goes on to outline "seven key trends and attributes of SaaS 2.0," the first of which I've quoted above. The remaining six are:
There's something else highlighted by Saugatuck's research: "Most executives substantially underestimate current SaaS deployment and usage, suggesting that [reported] penetration rates ... might be very conservative."
In other words, SaaS 2.0 will change your business — and it's already started.