A long but very interesting article found here http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228
I spent some time this morning, thinking through what SaaS means to service providers. Viewed through a negative lens, SaaS reduces service providers to commodity broadband on-ramps for a world where individual discovery, collaboration, consumption, and contribution rules, and the only thing between individuals and interconnected services is the ecosystem of broadband networks and internet browsing devices.
However, when I think of the Long Tail of SMEs and the rich messiness that is implicit, I see opportunity. Service providers should use blogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog and Wikis http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki to enter into a conversation with SMEs. By conversation, I don't mean marketing, sales, or service communication. Instead, I am speaking of an authentic discourse between the service provider and the business owner that is a free-form exchange, including, but not limited to, topics such as:
Done correctly, this discourse will extend beyond the boarders of an SPs customer base to the larger SME community in a given geography. The SPs role is to contribute, nurture, but not to control. By inserting themselves in the middle of an authentic conversation, SPs will uncover problems that can be converted into new service opportunities leveraging the trust and loyalty of the community.
From Mural's perspective, helping SPs establish this dialogue is, in the short run, of equal importance to the development and implementation of a strategic value added services roadmap. Over the mid- to long-term, it will be a driving indicator of success and longevity.