SaaSsy

At the SaaS Conference in Napa, sponsored by OpSource this past week -- and it was interesting to hear virtually every speaker refer to the "SMB" market-- that segment of customers for whom all of us has expected Software as a Service to be most useful and attractive.  But on the other hand, there are few vendors that truly develop their products for the SMBs.  The granddaddy of 'em all, Salesforce.com, surely does not.  In fact, the one company present at OpSource's excellent event that truly does a lot for small and medium-sized businesses is Microsoft, the "Evil Empire." 

Look at the feature sets of the various SaaS products today, and see how they're all really engineered for large organizations.  In many cases, the capabilities needed most by the "little guy" are only available in the "Enterprise Edition" of the product - the version that just isn't affordable for SMBs in most cases. 

So, many of the successful players in this segment are selling drugs.  "Try my Team Version today;  it's inexpensive and it will make you feel great.  Oh, you like that?  Well, what you really need is the Enterprise Version.  It has what you need.  Every day.  I'll be your source."