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Software-as-a-service: Difference between revisions
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===“SaaS” is short for “software ''development'' as a service”=== | ===“SaaS” is short for “software ''development'' as a service”=== | ||
“Software as a service” (latterly, “SaaS”) entered the lexicon some time in the 1980s, but really took off as a term of vogueness in the mid 2000s<ref>[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=SaaS%2C+software+as+a+service&year_start=1975&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing= Let me Google that for you]</ref> when it dawned on software providers that, since they were permanently connected to their customers via the internet, they could lock in revenue that comes from product updates without the messy business of marketing them persuading clients into subscription arrangements rather than one-off licences. | |||
But for that quid, there | But for that quid, there was a quo: the annual subscription was typically smaller than an outright licence, and you did have to upgrade the software: patching, enhancing, and updating. | ||
Of course, “software as a service” isn’t charging a running cost for static software. It is charging a running cost for ''improving'' software. | Of course, “software as a service” isn’t charging a running cost for static software. It is charging a running cost for ''improving'' software. | ||
These notions seem to be lost on the [[legaltech]] world. | These notions seem to be lost on the [[legaltech]] world. [[Legaltech]] aspires to be transformative — to bring we luddite attorneys kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century — but transformation has only transient [[Legaltech value|value]]. Once delivered, the benefit ceases to accrue. You pay for it once, and can only charge for it once. | ||
Hence the unpreparedness of legaltech customers to pay for their providers to squat on their documents, charging them hosting fees, or to pay repeat fees. | |||
===The [[reg tech]] business model conundrum=== | ===The [[reg tech]] business model conundrum=== | ||
It is a familiar experience amongst buyers of [[reg tech]] that products which look ''fabulous'' at the pitch when the [[general counsel]] is watching, tend to underwhelm in production when set upon by [[morlock|those]] who actually need them to work. It is one thing to perform [[magic]] on a pre-prepared [[non-disclosure agreement]] (“here’s one I made earlier”); it’s quite another to dispatch the knotty, irritating, unpredictable and frequently ''absurd'' [[real-life legal problems]] that your staff have to solve at the coalface. | It is a familiar experience amongst buyers of [[reg tech]] that products which look ''fabulous'' at the pitch when the [[general counsel]] is watching, tend to underwhelm in production when set upon by [[morlock|those]] who actually need them to work. It is one thing to perform [[magic]] on a pre-prepared [[non-disclosure agreement]] (“here’s one I made earlier”); it’s quite another to dispatch the knotty, irritating, unpredictable and frequently ''absurd'' [[real-life legal problems]] that your staff have to solve at the coalface. | ||