Imagine a scenario where your company is late to market, is losing market share, or is unable to get customers to adopt your product solution because it would require the involvement of the Information Systems (IS) department for installation and management (and the IS group is already overburdened with other projects). What would happen if you repackaged your product as a Web service that required no IS involvement in design, installation, or management of your product offering? Could you then broaden the appeal of your product set?
Web services architecture allows for such repackaging, making it possible for software vendors to restructure the way they sell their products as well as providing new avenues to go-to-market. Using a Web services go-to-market approach, software makers can structure a new business model that enables them to approach target markets more efficiently than by using today's "traditional" approach. These efficiencies manifest themselves in faster time-to-market, lower promotional costs, and lower sales/general/administrative (SG&A) costs, and thereby contributing to a software maker's bottom-line profitability.