In big picture terms, it is still early for the SaaS industry. Reference SoftwareMag.com's database of the top 500 software vendors worldwide as measured by revenue (http://www.softwaremag.com). In the database there are 149 software companies with annual revenues greater than $200M.

How many SaaS vendors today have revenue > $200M? If you use 2005 earnings as the yardstick? Zero. None. Not a single one.

SalesForce.com will break through that number in their 2006 earnings, but the point is, if we expect the SaaS industry to evolve in the same way that the traditional software industry has, we have a long way to go.