Fellow EI Bob Warfield asked the intriguing question in one of our conversations and touches on it in this post.
To me, the big promise with SaaS is making the underlying infrastructure - hardware, software, network - far more affordable than individual customers could individually buy it for. That was the promise traditional outsourcers also made, but I am constantly shocked to see pass through discounts they offer are lower than what individual companies can negotiate with Sun or Oracle.
The question of course, is whether SaaS vendors benefit from at least the perception that Oracle is more "bullet proof" or do SaaS customers just want results (high uptime, performance etc) and don't really care what the underlying technology is - especially if the economics are more attractive?
Readers?
Update: Title Credit should actually go to another fellow EI, Tom Foydel