The commoditization of IT is an evil thing if you’re a big-ticket business application software company living on maintenance fees. Business application software is arguably the last remaining piece of the technology stack yet to be completely disrupted by commoditization. Well, that’s about to change, and it’s all thanks to SaaS.

When most people think about the benefits of SaaS, they think about quick implementation, universal access, multi-tenant efficiency, and affordable subscription pricing. While all of that is true, those things are probably not what will make SaaS memorable 20 years from now. I think SaaS will primarily be remembered for commoditizing business application software--to the benefit of both the software industry and its customers.

Take Help Desk software for example. Most organizations using Help Desk software use it primarily to manage trouble tickets. But ticket management is a commodity. We figured out how to optimize that process a long time ago, and there aren’t any secrets left anymore. Two engineers with a background in ticketing could whip up a feature-rich ticketing system in about 6 months. They could build out the full software stack using open source components and, assuming they build it for a SaaS delivery model (why would they do anything else?), install it all on something like Amazon’s EC2 (once it supports persistent data later this year) and have a robust system fully deployed and globally available at an ongoing cost of around $2500 per month. At that cost/configuration, a well designed system could probably support 10,000 active users/agents based in North America, but because the system would be accessible globally and in use on a 24/7 basis it could probably support 20,000 active global users/agents. Do the math. That’s 13 cents per month per agent. The cost for delivering the service to a 1000 employee company with a 15 agent Help Desk would be $1.95 per month. That’s how SaaS is driving the commoditization of business application software.

So, two questions:

1) How much are you paying for your Help Desk software?

2) Are big-ticket business application software companies economically motivated to make the switch to SaaS?

The correct answers are 1) way too much, and 2) no, never.

Of course, commoditization both destroys value and creates value. It obliterates old paradigms while giving birth to new ones. The business application software industry is evolving at a torrid pace. Driven by survival instincts, the industry is innovating in ways that are both risky and exhilarating. And, as always, it’s happening mostly from the bottom up. As Clay Christensen has taught us all, it’s easier to innovate when starting from scratch.

That’s why Helpstream is at the forefront of SaaS-driven innovation. Whether you need a simple Help Desk system (available from us for free by the way), or the tight integration of web technologies to radically improve your Customer Service processes (which make a modern Customer Service application worth paying for), Helpstream is only a click away. When you think SaaS-based Customer Service, think Helpstream.