5. SaaS: Community
Another common characteristic of SaaS at present is the emergence of the online SaaS developer communities that typically surround a particular application often extending the platform capabilities, providing integration solutions etc. These often arise out of the early adoption community and can prove extremely influential groups on the subsequent evolution and uptake of a SaaS application. A term that has been used to refer to this phenomenon is “outsourced innovation” or “open innovation” or the “rise of intermediaries” as Mikko Ahonen puts it. The most readily identifiable example being the Apex Platform from Saleforce.com but a fun site I was introduced to not long ago is the Mashery, that boasts being able to take your web service offering and build a strong and active developer community upon it!
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