Web Aps that come from a port of an on-premises software product are already at a disadvantage; camping halfway up the mountain via ASP just makes the journey harder.
What are the dangers, if any, to using ASP as a transition while converting application to SaaS?
There are dangers, not the least of which is the misconception that the Application Service Provider (ASP) model is simply a phase in the migration to SaaS. ASP is not a step on the way to SaaS for a Legacy Software vendor. With that knowledge, it would seem that you might be better off simply holding off of doing anything with your legacy clients until it is time to move them to SaaS.
If you introduce an interim step to your clients in the migration to SaaS, you will add yet another possible churn point, or a place where you could lose clients. The path to SaaS does not include ASP so unless there is serious market demand to move the software to the network level and out of their hands, my advice for the time being is to not introduce ASP to the mix and just wait until your SaaS product is ready to rollout.
That said, every market is different and I would be more than happy to sit down and discuss this with you in more detail.
Author: Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy on Twitter)