Wouldn't it be relatively easy for them to provide a server hosted by a client, on a corporate internet?
They may think such cases don't support "get big fast". But they might be wrong about that. A lot of software (Excel) is first propagated through work usages, and workplace availability might provide important vectors to 100mm users.
Now, users on a client-dedicated server won't help scale their data operations. But they will help spread the word and introduce use cases. And provide a target for developers / consultants to build out applications.
Even if some corporate solution doesn't seem a priority, they might want to dedicate some time to serving a few such edge cases. Just to keep an eye on that niche and keep themselves somewhat adapted to the requirements.
It'd be easy to provide a server, sure, but the problem is maintaining it. It is much easier to maintain stuff that you control 100% because once you've given it to someone else to put on their network:
1) You have to get remote access to it. This probably means setting up a VPN. Probably some weird thing the client uses, which only works on Windows XP. And is unbearably slow, and is down at random times.
2) You have to coordinate upgrades with the local administration. Need to reboot to apply a Windows patch? Best make sure there will be someone available if it turns out you need to hit F1 in the BIOS to continue. IPMI/KVM-IP help with this, but add cost (and security concerns).
3) Hardware failure? You get to deal with the local admins (are they competent? Do they know the hardware you picked? Did they keep track of the spares you sent?—you did send spares, right?). Or worse, fly someone there.
4) "The page loads slow". Now you get to debug the client's internal network! —assuming you can even get to the box, over same broken internal network. So even better, you get to debug the client's internal network, over the phone with whoever their IT department can spare—and who definitely believes its not their problem.
5) Monitoring. Yeah. That's going to be difficult if you only have access to it at all with that Windows XP VPN client (which automatically times the connection out after 15 minutes, security and all ya' know). Hopefully the client can do it. Monitoring means more than just "is it up"; it also includes "how close to capacity are we", "are we seeing any weirdness that'd indicate problems", etc.
6) It's a single client on the box. So they will ask you at some point "oh, we're really busy this month, please don't upgrade it, we can't risk it breaking". And you'll be hard-pressed to say no, after all, they client will point out that just not deploying is less work for you.
6b) "except we found this one critical bug, we need a patch for it ASAP"
7) When you own the boxes, you can keep things consistent. Want to upgrade RAM on all your web servers? Go ahead. You'll have very few configuration differences. Want to upgrade the RAM on the box at the client? Yeah, you'll need to open a ticket with their IT department, they'll get back to you sometime.
8) A client that demands their own local box is also one that's likely to be paranoid in other ways—they'll want to know who (on your team) has accessed the box, when, and why; they'll bug you about it; they may want a say in who you can hire to administer it; etc. This may or may not be justified (e.g., it probably is for the DoD). But it'll surely be a pain.
9) Utilization of boxes you host is going to be higher—the client's box will need to be sized for peak times, but will be 99.9% idle off-hours. Also, the client boxes will probably be lower-capacity (to be cheaper). Fewer users per box = more boxes. More boxes = more administration. Especially when they're different.
Sure, but you're talking about the vendor supplying the program to the customer and still maintaining the installation at the site. I was under the impression the request was by customers who have their own IT departments, for a "give us the program and let our IT department do the maintenance" scenario. Or is that not the case, do all the prospective customers who want to run software on their own servers, only want to do so if the vendor still maintains it?
The IT department can't maintain it themselves, because they didn't write the program and don't have the source code. So at least some of the support has to be from the vendor.
Some customers will have competent admins, who like to solve problems themselves, they probably won't be a huge issue (except for the ones who do crazy and insane things). Other customers won't, and you'll get contacted all the time.
They may think such cases don't support "get big fast". But they might be wrong about that. A lot of software (Excel) is first propagated through work usages, and workplace availability might provide important vectors to 100mm users.
Now, users on a client-dedicated server won't help scale their data operations. But they will help spread the word and introduce use cases. And provide a target for developers / consultants to build out applications.
Even if some corporate solution doesn't seem a priority, they might want to dedicate some time to serving a few such edge cases. Just to keep an eye on that niche and keep themselves somewhat adapted to the requirements.