Research on semi-cooperative relationship and pricing strategy of SaaS platform in industrial internet
Given the specific industry needs of various enterprise users in the industrial internet environment,SaaS platforms are gradually showing a trend of platformization and forming a new type of production relationship with software developers that differs from traditional cooperation models. This study focuses on the semi-collaborative production relationships formed between SaaS service providers and third-party software developers in the context of the industrial internet,exploring their underlying motivations and pricing strategies. The research finds that the differentiation of enterprise user needs not only reduces platform profits but also,under conditions of sufficient cross-network externalities,a differentiated pricing strategy for multi-homing and exclusive software developers is more advantageous for the platform compared to uniform pricing. Furthermore,the differentiation of enterprise users prompts the platform to increase pricing for multi-homing software developers,while pricing for exclusive developers remains unchanged,indicating that the platform fully transfers the negative impact of user differentiation to multi-homing developers. When introducing asymmetry among enterprise users,information asymmetry further damages the platform's interests,and the degree of damage increases with the degree of user difference,but it does not affect the overall social welfare. This study provides a theoretical basis for SaaS platforms to optimize production relationships and pricing strategies in the industrial internet environment.
SaaS platformsemi-collaborative relationshipenterprise user differentiationsocial welfareindustrial internet