Software Licensing in the Case of No Network Effects

  • Shengli Li
  • Hsing Kenneth Cheng
Conference paper
Part of the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing book series (LNBIP, volume 108)

Abstract

Traditionally, consumers purchase software by paying the price upfront and install the software on their computers. However, allowing consumers “pay as you go” by subscribing to the software has become increasingly popular. The two licensing models are referred to as “on-premises model” and “Software as a Service (SaaS) model” respectively. This paper studies the software vendor’s choice of the two models considering consumers’ uncertainty on the software quality and the software upgrading issue.

Keywords

Software as a Service Backward compatibility Consumers’ uncertainty Network Effects 

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References

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    Cheng, H., Liu, Y.: Optimal software free trial strategy: The impact of network effects and consumer uncertainty. Information Systems Research (2011)Google Scholar
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    Hall, K.G.: SaaS sales will grow 16.2% to $10.7bn (2011), http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/12/14/244489/Gartner-SaaS-sales-will-grow-16.2-to-10.7bn-in-2011.htm (retrieved June 27, 2011)
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Shengli Li
    • 1
  • Hsing Kenneth Cheng
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Information Systems and, Operations Management Warrington College of Business AdministrationUniversity of FloridaUSA

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