On-demand or SaaS (Software as a Service) as a delivery method offers a real viable alternative to the traditional licensing model or on-premise model. Yet, what is strange about this is that the number of major companies switching to SaaS still outnumber small and mid-sized businesses for which the benefits of significant IT savings would be more substantial. A closer inspection will reveal that apparently, on top of the threat of 'lock-in', the cost of SaaS apps, most of which are proprietary, are still way beyond what they can afford.
On the other hand, there's open source or what is generally termed as 'software you can use for which you won't have to pay for licenses'.
Yet, getting open source to work for you or your small company is by no means an easy task and there's a big gap between what IT can do in the corporate world vs your mom and pop, basic business venture. The cost of getting IT management for an on-premise implementation simply isn't going to help the cause for choosing open source. It s a widely believed (and acknowledged) that the dilemma with Open Source is this: a lot of good applications are available, but they are written by geeks for geeks and plenty of pain points awaits non-geeky small business everywhere to be able to download and implement them.
Which brings us to a practical solution: Open Source and SaaS.
Combining the two and offering this as 'off-the-shelf', eliminates a lot of IT headaches that are often the scourge for SMBs. Cost-wise, being open source should already give companies the better deal while being on-demand will take care of the two big gaping holes for companies, that is management of the application, as well as the infrastructure that runs it.
Would this be enough to sway huge numbers for adoption for Open Source and SaaS? Honestly, who can tell? (The type of applications made available - one that can compete features-wise compared with leading commercial products would also matter significantly.)
Integration is one thing and recession is another but marketing ... is a whole different ball game.
Related:
On-Demand CRM to Enable Agility for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses