I was agreeing with this post by Lincoln Murphy at the Sand Hill blogs...Or, at least, the first part. Yes, technology companies--and not just the ones that have SaaS offerings--would be well-served to think of their products as services. However, I don't follow the leap from that point to statements like, "Services Do Not Have To Have Versions Or Releases." In fact, that's the leap straight into a hole.
A lot of SaaS vendors believe that rapid releases of new capabilities are the key to success. Talking to end users and IT departments, however, and you get a different story.
Obviously, the rate at which people and organizations can ingest new information, then act upon it, is not infinite. Even if the information is highly valuable--how I can lose weight, be more productive, get incredible deals, radiate confidence, make the right investments, etc. etc.--there's only so much that you can process in a day.
The last thing you want to do with customers is confuse them. Or build them things that they don't notice. Or make them feel lost, the next time they log into an application that they use every day.
And it's not just the customers that get confused. Inside every technology company, there are nice, well-intentioned, highly professional people who need to market, sell, and support the product. Salespeople have other things to do than learn about this week's list of new features, or stay current on the roadmap of weekly releases.
In most situations, people need landmarks to encapsulate change. Not everyone wants to be on a constant voyage of discovery, particularly when they're not in control of the direction or speed.
Why do tech companies often overlook these human limitations? Because, in the minds of some immature people in an immature industry, value is a direct function of features. The more, the better. The faster they're delivered, the better.
The principle, Faster is not necessarily better, applies in different degrees across companies. If Flickr or eBay add new features every week, their audience will be a lot less annoyed than, say, a government auditor using a document management tool like SpringCM, or the lawyers who manage their practices with Clio.
Even so, everyone has their limits.
A lot of SaaS vendors believe that rapid releases of new capabilities are the key to success. Talking to end users and IT departments, however, and you get a different story.
Obviously, the rate at which people and organizations can ingest new information, then act upon it, is not infinite. Even if the information is highly valuable--how I can lose weight, be more productive, get incredible deals, radiate confidence, make the right investments, etc. etc.--there's only so much that you can process in a day.
The last thing you want to do with customers is confuse them. Or build them things that they don't notice. Or make them feel lost, the next time they log into an application that they use every day.And it's not just the customers that get confused. Inside every technology company, there are nice, well-intentioned, highly professional people who need to market, sell, and support the product. Salespeople have other things to do than learn about this week's list of new features, or stay current on the roadmap of weekly releases.
In most situations, people need landmarks to encapsulate change. Not everyone wants to be on a constant voyage of discovery, particularly when they're not in control of the direction or speed.
Why do tech companies often overlook these human limitations? Because, in the minds of some immature people in an immature industry, value is a direct function of features. The more, the better. The faster they're delivered, the better.
The principle, Faster is not necessarily better, applies in different degrees across companies. If Flickr or eBay add new features every week, their audience will be a lot less annoyed than, say, a government auditor using a document management tool like SpringCM, or the lawyers who manage their practices with Clio.
Even so, everyone has their limits.
+++ I was agreeing with this post by Lincoln Murphy at the Sand Hill blogs...Or, at least, the first part. Yes, technology companies--and not just the ones that have SaaS offerings--would be well-served to think of their products as services. However, I don't follow the leap from that point to statements like, "Services Do Not Have To Have Versions Or Releases." In fact, that's the leap straight into a hole. +++
Well, no, it's not. We've been tracking the pace of product releases in SaaS for three years at Softletter and the latest figures in the 2009 report are interesting.
Major updates per year (major update was defined as significant new features and functionality, not just incremental improvement and bug fixes)
Twice a year: 23%
Three or more times per year: 28%
We do not have a set release schedule; we release new features as they are ready: 24%
As these numbers show, the traditional release schedule is disappearing in SaaS and software companies need to adjust.
+++ Talking to end users and IT departments, however, and you get a different story. +++
Are you talking to the SAME customers who requested these features? Because I can assure you, that's where almost of the requests come from! SaaS CEOs are not releasing these new capabilities because they just love hiring new programmers and spending money on new testbeds and test sites where new functionality can be observed and vetted before a general release. I had these discussions in 2006 when we released our first figures on this topic. The I listened to lively discussion from VOC advocates who assured me that everyone wanted SaaS product to be light and lean and avoid feature bloat.
And they were all wrong. What happens when you release a new SaaS application is that you are slammed by customers asking for new functionality. I've just come back from our SaaS conference in Chicago; this is the fifth such conference we've held.
The topic of feature release and customer management is discussed at each session in one context or another. I have yet to have a SaaS CEO tell me that releasing new functionality into their products is a major issue. Rather the opposite, actually.
+++ The last thing you want to do with customers is confuse them. Or build them things that they don't notice. Or make them feel lost, the next time they log into an application that they use every day. +++
The last thing you want to do is not give the customer what they want. I believe you need to rethink your take on product development and SaaS. It is quite possible to continuously change an application a continuous and incremental basis IF your customers are interacting with the application on a 24/7/52 basis. E-bay is a good example of this; the application is constantly changing. E-bay has learned to roll out new functionality on a constant basis without confusing their customers.
+++ Salespeople have other things to do than learn about this week's list of new features, or stay current on the roadmap of weekly releases. +++
Current thinking about product roadmaps are not very applicable to SaaS.
rick chapman
www.softletter.com
www.saasuniversity.com
Posted by: rick | 07/07/2009 at 11:03 AM