Microsoft's "SaaS Maturity Level"

Microsoft has an interesting way of looking at SaaS-iness. They have a four-level "SaaS maturity model" that looks at an application's scalability, configurability, and "multi-tenant-efficiency" to determine what SaaS level it fits into.

This model has been around for a couple of years, but I was introduced to it in a "CTO P2P Forum" put on by the Utah Technology Council and featuring Nate Bowler, CTO of @Task.

It was obvious from Nate's presentation that they're doing some really great things there, but it was also clear that they haven't reached the 4th level of SaaS maturity, according to Microsoft's model. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Microsoft clearly states.

But what's really interesting to me about Microsoft's SaaS maturity model is that it only seems to address the architectural aspects of SaaS...which, while fundamental to an overall SaaS philosophy, don't in and of themselves make a SaaS offering.

We learned years ago (before the "SaaS" acronym was coined) that there is a lot more to SaaS than software. If your Sales team isn't SaaS-oriented, or your client support teams aren't SaaS-oriented, then you're not going to have much success...because your salespeople won't sell, and your customers won't get adequate support.

For example, how do you price SaaS? If your nearest client-server competitor is selling their system for $50,000 with a 20% annual maintenance contract, do you sell your system for $49,000 with a 15% annual maintenance contract? Of course not. If you're truly SaaS, then you may (and probably will) charge an upfront fee for implementation and training, but your pricing should be a monthly (or annual) subscription model, of perhaps $1,999/month.

So, that brings in steady recurring revenue month after month as long as you can keep the customer. But then how do you pay the salesperson? I don't know the answer, but certainly it will be different from your competitor's compensation plan.

Anyway, Nate's presentation was excellent, but it was clear that their un-SaaSiness extended beyond their architecture into their deployment model and other business decisions. Again, that's not a problem, as it seems to work well for them.

I came to the conclusion that AdvancedMD is just about as SaaSy as you can get. That's pretty cool, considering that our archicture and business model predate the industry's fascination with SaaS by several years.