Peter Dinham
Sunday, 07 June 2009 16:42
IT Industry -
Development
The economic downturn has brought some benefit to businesses buying new software, with steep license discounts and maintenance concessions, seemingly now the market norm.
IDC in a recent survey of IT and
line-of-business (LOB) professionals, found that more than 60 percent
of those surveyed thought that now was a good time to negotiate those
steep discounts for traditional on-premise software, with businesses
and organisations “highly interested in software pricing options that
help shift spending from capital budgets to operating budgets.”
According to IDC’s Amy Konary, in an economy where traditional
licensing approaches are under fire, software companies, in order to
survive the downturn and position for growth in an eventual recovery,
“will have to evolve their go-to-market approach,” and, she added,
“subscription pricing and SaaS will play a key role."
As well as an interest by organisations in shifting capital budgets to
operating budgets, Konary said that, in addition, “more than half of
C-Level executives surveyed are open to buying software from a small
firm with a very short track record, if the price is good and
functionality seems at least comparable.”
Konary says there will be more information on the IDC software survey
in its next lot of briefings, including an update on the growth
expectations for SaaS and subscription, which will also highlight “the
key characteristics that customers are looking for in the pricing of
software offerings.”