I agree with your premise that VARs need to add value to applcations, whether Saas or on-premise.

At least with Intacct, not only can you customize the applications and deploy vertical extensions and even build your own add-on applications you can also template all of this so you can deploy them over and over again.

And as a VAR, you share in a significant portion of customer billings (you actually own the customer contracts, you pay us a revenue share rather than the other way around) for the lifetime of the customer. This is one thing a VAR should look for – does the publisher own the contract with the client or does the VAR own the contract with the client.

I get it you are suspicious that SaaS vendors may change their revenue sharing model over time. Next time we are in person, let spend some time going through the SaaS vendor economic model- I think once you understand SaaS vendor cost of customer acquisition (relatively high) vs. ongoing operating costs (relatively low) you’ll see why SaaS vendors are happy to share revenue over the long term with VARs who bring them new customers.