It was exciting to see one research group after another come up with more and more exciting news on the SaaS front for the time to come:

In October, Forrester’s conservative figures of 25% of software sales to go SaaS by 2011, was supplemented by another Forrester research showing “some” interest in SaaS in as many as 34% of enterprise and 45% of SMB survey respondents. BusinessWeek, in January, reported 1/3 of all mid to enterprise sized companies already use some sort of SaaS, another 1/3 will adopt in 2007. Finally survey from Cutters Consortium shows that almost every other company (50%?) is already using SaaS. (Hey, we are already there!!)

Then Phil Wainewright (http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/) burst the bubble indicating that interviewed users had no clue whether the company they are interviewed about is a leader in the on-demand field or even offers an on demand product.

His observation is correct – the industry is growing. The rules are being written – at this point there is still no consensus even on SaaS definition.

Many vendors who were previously offering online access to their product are warming up to the hype now coming out with announcements that they’ve embraced the on-demand model (always had, in fact). A case in point, cell phone companies offered access into their account online for years, so that makes them SaaS vendors. And, according to some definitions, they are correct.. (expect a SaaS announcement from your local bank)

This calls for another review of the definition that will get greater acceptance in the user space.