What's Next After SaaS?
Chiradeep BasuMallick, The author of the very well conceived and well written article Top 10 Software as a Service (SaaS) Companies in 2021 at
ends the article with
“SaaS signals a brand new way of doing business…”
(Brand new? Sorry, but SaaS has been around for years.)
and then asks:
Do you think SaaS will replace on-premise and perpetual licenses in the next five years?
The answer is that that process is well underway and if you want to be any more precise than that it depends on how you measure "replacement.”
But let’s ask a better question, which is...
What’s next?
What will replace software-as-a-service?
The IT industry has seen itself reinvented every few years since the late fifties:
Mainframes → nonbatch interactive computing → minicomputers → modular programming → personal computers → open source → the internet → Gopher → the Web → social media → iPod/iPad → smartphones → the cloud → SaaS → blockchain / cryptocurrencies →
and everything stops there????!!!
Of course not!
Answer:
- Placeware.
- InDoor spaces.
- Buildings.
- Residences.
(Already, millennials don’t know what the word “software” means. They certainly don’t know or care what “software as a service” means, any more than they know what materials and technologies are used in the physical buildings they inhabit. “Software as a service” is just something the old folks talk about, along with the word “virtual.” If you hear someone use the word “virtual” they’re at least 40 years old (in other words, ancient.)