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The 3 Forces Quietly Dismantling the Business Model That Made Enterprise Software Fabulously Profitable

  • Writer: Admin
    Admin
  • Apr 17
  • 1 min read

Software stocks have been in freefall, and a new word has entered the business lexicon: "SaaSpocalypse." The thesis is that AI is poised to undermine the business model that made enterprise software one of the most profitable industries on the planet, built on high margins, recurring revenues and customers locked in by painful switching costs.


Drawing on roundtables with senior business leaders in San Francisco and New York, this Fortune piece identifies three structural forces now bearing down on that model: the vulnerability of captive markets to disruption, the collapse of barriers to entry as AI coding agents make it far cheaper and faster to build enterprise-grade software, and the rethinking of workflows that is shifting competitive advantage away from horizontal, one-size-fits-all platforms toward deep vertical expertise.


The SaaSpocalypse may be an overstatement, but the forces behind it are real. Margins will compress, pricing models will shift from per-seat to outcome-based, and the fight for control points across the enterprise software ecosystem is only just beginning.


Read here.


Authors: Michael Jacobides and Stefano Puntoni

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3 Comments


thomasdarborough
a day ago

This article did a great job addressing details that only someone deeply embedded in this specific space would genuinely think to include. The author's familiarity with the subject's finer points added real value well beyond what more general coverage typically offers casual readers. That value is exactly what makes a niche blog worth the extra effort required to seek it out specifically. Thanks for such a genuinely valuable and specifically detailed piece.

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thomasdarborough
3 days ago

There's something about this piece that feels different from the usual content on this subject, in a good way. It reads as a genuinely interesting text rather than a rehashed version of ideas we've all seen before. The author brings a fresh angle that made me reconsider a few assumptions I had going in. That's not an easy thing to pull off, especially on a topic this well-covered. If you like discovering new perspectives, browse the blog for more pieces that do the same. Thanks for the thought-provoking read.

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dedemej881
Jun 16

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