Gartner: SaaS and open source pressuring proprietary software vendors to drop prices

Gartner has issued a research note that finds that proprietary software is facing serious pricing pressure from a range of different software trends, among them Software as a Service (SaaS) and open source. My heart is bleeding for these poor vendors who have spent decades wringing every last dime out of customers with the “build once, charge everywhere” moment in time that digitization afforded. (I say “moment in time” because it’s increasingly clear that digital “abundance” business models make more sense than faking scarcity.)