Is Advertising the Future of Software Revenue? Part I

By: Phil Morettini

There is a strong movement toward Internet-based software applications. Of this, there is little doubt. I have written on the SaaS trend in the past, and believe it is real. But sometimes market trends such as the move toward SaaS are overstated, both in terms of the speed of change, and also how much change the trend will ultimately affect a market. We have a word for this overstatement of a trend: 'hype'. So, is traditional software revenue model of licensing dead? Will all software eventually be 'given away' to the end user, and supported solely by advertising revenue?"