SaaS companies still not making a lot of money now?  Probably, but better to ride a train that's going somewhere than riding a sports car that isn't getting anywhere.

As far as buzzwords go, SaaS or Software as a Service is ranking pretty high up there at the moment that even in the Philippines, it is getting some attention thanks to techies and IT advocates like our own Winston Damarillo or WD who recently featured on a ComputerWorld article on the future of SaaS in the country. 

But for all intent and purposes, especially for the cynics declaring to 'show them the money', let's get one thing straight - SaaS isn't going to be an overnight sensation and certainly not a flash-in-the-pan idea.  It is akin to a simmering stew but no doubt, soon a main staple in every company's IT dinner table.  Salesforce certainly wasn't built in a day and as a recent post about Amazon AWS has revealed, the cloud computing giant hasn't enriched it's coffers as everyone may have surmised. 

So for those who question SaaS from the providers perspective to profit as the likes of Facebook and Twitter - both anomalies more than the norm, surely are missing a crucial point.  SaaS money travelling between providers and users will be to an extent fewer than those spent on traditional legacy software licenses and purchases given the same period of time simply because SaaS apps will substantially cost much less.  The days of one software giant making money off individual user purchases will never again be duplicated nor surpassed.

On the contrary, SaaS value makes more sense with fostering long-time, mutually beneficial contracts decided by opt-ins and not locked-ins over enterprise applications for groups of users choosing a particular service over another.  Moreover, that  profitability needs to firmly stand amidst the cacophony of open standards and a gazillion of choices that mostly include the initial 'free' trials. It's not as bad as it sounds, just a lot of hard work to capture the hearts and minds of IT decision makers ever mindful of cost efficiencies.

And the good news? The future keeps getting nearer.