What is SaaS (Software as a Service) ?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGUPSvswmY0
SaaS was born a while ago in early 2000, when a venture fund started funding startups in an area called ‘ASP ‘ (not Microsoft’s cheap answer to php – asp), but Application Service Provider. Unfortunately, the ASP industry did not get accepted widely and slowly it fizzled away. The last few months have seen a re-emergence of this in a new avatar – SaaS – Software as a Service . All sorts of names are being thrown around for the same thing. Yes, it is an old wine in new bottle but that is what we like sometimes.
Today, there are N names for SaaS that you might have heard thrown around as buzzwords at conferences, seminars, corporate meetings, IT discussions, so on and so forth. Some of them are as follows:
- Software as a Service
- SaaS Software
- Hosted AM
- SaaS on demand
- Software on tap
- On demand computing
- Hosted Application Management
- Software distribution model
- Service provider
- Software as a Product
Basically, there have been some changes and advancements in the technology arena that has made SaaS Model happening and reverse of which were the reasons why ASP became passe. To name a few:
- Whole world being inter-connected at all times
- Broadband internet access globally
- Web services
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Benefits to vendors / suppliers of software:
- Single copy management
- Easier delivery
- Sell worldwide
- Patches, Updates and Service Packs are not required
Advantages to users / customers
- Lower IT costs
- Easy to use
- No information technology related hassles
- Anywhere access
- Work from home (distributed work environment, no commute becomes reality)
Some of the leading SaaS providers today are as follows:
- Easy SOHO Solutions (Creators of EasyStoreHosting , EasyHelpDeskHosting and more)
- ZOHO
- Remember the Milk
- 37 Signals
- Google Docs
- Saas Technologies Ltd
- Blist
Its a great concept and very cost effective. But can and will never be used when any of the services are for critical data. None of the organizations would take the risk of trusting the service providers with important corporate information. For example, no important data will ever be uploaded on google docs, regardless of the amount of authentication and authorization they claim to provide!!
Time will tell if your assumption is right. Micro-finance has already taken this route by using FINO’s banking software (http://www.fino.co.in/) – 1 million customers. More and more businesses are going this way. Also, SaaS does not mean you necessarily have to keep your data with the supplier. Data can still be at your location physically. SaaS is not about trusting someone else with your data. Oracle, Ramco, SAP, Microsoft, Google and more and more software are being offered in SaaS form. So supplier side adaption is already there. User side adaption is picking up as more and more employees are broadening their minds and understanding of SaaS.
Even if the data is physically stored in the db servers of the organizations, the exchange of this data with the service providers, for their application to provide results – transactional or analytical, will be prone to security breaches or corruption. I personally believe, SaaS will be effective only in cases when the data is more of market research sort of information. I wouldnt be comfortable letting my company data leave out of the wires of my company
Saas is there for quite some time now and its gonna remain here for as long as the Internet is alive;
Whose using Saas… There are plenty of them.
Google – complete Java library
Salesforce.com and CRM are hot
Oracle and SAP have web interfaces
Web shopping sites are SaaS now
Most mobile apps are actually SaaS now.
@Sploonker: Some small business organizations do find it very difficult to trust third party SaaS Service providers to manage their applications and data.
Chris I pray that every thing go Gods way and you do not serve any time for this. I pray that you help others
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