As early adopters of Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) have realized, it is not easy to find the right feature bundling and pricing models. In fact, the number one question SaaS vendors ask once they are in the cloud is: “How do we optimize?”
According to a recent whitepaper by THINKStrategies, software licensing and entitlement management in the traditional, on-premise software world has become relatively routine and well regulated. But, the dynamic, services-oriented nature of the SaaS/cloud market presents a new set of challenges for pure-play SaaS vendors and independent software vendors (ISVs) looking to shift to the cloud.
In order to successfully monetize SaaS or any software application, ISVs need to be able to enable, track and control usage of their service. According to THINKStrategies this “not only ensures authorized use of the service and enables accurate billing, but also provides invaluable insight into how products and/or features are being used in order to shape product roadmap decisions.”
“To be successful in an increasingly competitive software industry, SaaS vendors must adopt service management tools that allow dynamic service catalog development, permit automated service provisioning, allow service pricing configuration, and track and report on how their service is being used,” commented Michelle Nerlinger, Marketing Director for SafeNet’s (News - Alert) Software Monetization portfolio.
SafeNet’s Sentinel Cloud software monetization platform helps ISVs and SaaS vendors to maximize profitability and customer satisfaction with the following development and delivery functions:
- Define and control service catalog and pricing models at the feature level for maximum packaging flexibility;
- Automatically provision services to users to increase operational efficiency;
- Control user authorization at the feature level to ensure service agreement compliance and maximize profitability;
- Measure and track usage for billing and business intelligence (BI) purposes to simplify operations and support decision-making; and
- Adapt service offerings and pricing models dynamically with minimal involvement of the software engineering team.
Finally, according to THINKStrategies, Sentinel Cloud also meets the increasing expectations of IT and corporate decision-makers for greater BI and usage analytics. In the cloud, usage data is not only used for BI but is imperative for supporting business critical processes such as billing. Therefore, it is essential that cloud service providers are able to easily track, organize and report on service usage.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.
Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.
Edited by Rich Steeves