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Product Differentiation for Software-as-a-Service Providers

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  • Arne Katzmarzik

Abstract

The market for the new provisioning type Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has reached a significant size and still shows enormous growth rates. By varying size of SaaS products, providers can improve their market position and profits by successfully acting in the tension area of customer acquisition, pricing and costs. We first elaborate differences concerning product differentiation between classic software provisioning models and SaaS. Then, we introduce a micro-economic based decision model to maximize the return of a provider by finding an optimal granularity, i.e. by varying the size of services. This paper makes two contributions in this context: (1) it provides a conceptual foundation for product differentiation within the scope of SaaS and (2) it presents the first implementation of variable reproduction costs for web based software offers. The model is illustrated by a real world case with data from a SaaS provider. Copyright Gabler Verlag 2011

Suggested Citation

  • Arne Katzmarzik, 2011. "Product Differentiation for Software-as-a-Service Providers," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 3(1), pages 19-31, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:binfse:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:19-31
    DOI: 10.1007/s12599-010-0142-4
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