SaaS Business Architecture

Preliminary Definition Slides 8/15/2009

Copyright© 2009 Sixteen Ventures / Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
 Conventional SaaS
Definitions
“a model of software deployment whereby a “…software that’s developed and hosted by the
provider licenses an application to customers for SaaS vendor and which the end user customer
use as a service on demand.” accesses over the Internet. ”
- Wikipedia - CIO.com

“…subscription based, and all upgrades are provided during the term of
the subscription. […] is hosted and updated on a central location, and
does not reside on client computers.”
- Utah.gov

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 Problem…

Most conventional definitions of SaaS are

meaningless to SaaS vendors and result in
industry-wide misunderstandings and
confusion

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 Solution…

Stop trying to fit Eliminate legacy

legacy models into a artifacts and start
modern model with what works

Delineate SaaS and Introduce the

its defining SaaS Business
characteristics Architecture

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 SaaS Business
Architecture Defined
Intellectual
Marketing Property

SaaS
Business
Technology
Model
The SaaS Business Architecture is a commingling of
Marketing, Intellectual Property,Technology, and Business
Model
Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.
 Marketing

Unique value
Inherently Social
proposition

Reduce barriers to
Self-Service focus
adoption

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 Technology
Multi-Tenant,
Single Instance in
implementation
Production
agnostic

Customizations Web-native, UI
break the model Agnostic

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 Intellectual Property

Proprietary
Core Application
Functionality

Cannot be the
Value beyond the
only focus of
core application
developers

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 Business Model
Metering, Billing
Inbuilt Revenue
Internal to
Models
Application

Not bound by
Focused on
single revenue
Business Scalability
model

Copyright© 2009 Lincoln Murphy / Sixteen Ventures. All Rights Reserved.

 SaaS
Business

Lincoln Murphy, Managing Director

lincoln@sixteenventures.com
http://sixteenventures.com

http://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy
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lincolnmurphy (972) 200-9317