Keeping in form with my post about thin clients, this week I’m
going to write about Software as a Service, or SaaS for short. Software as a service is a software
licensing and delivery method in which users get their software on a
subscription basis and everything is centrally hosted. Software as a service is becoming more and
more prevalent for many reasons that we’ll see as we go on.
One of the advantages to software as a service is that
distribution is not done physically, it’s done almost instantaneously. Through your subscription, typically monthly
or annually, you get access to the software and continued support. While some companies like Microsoft do a bit
of sales in the SaaS environment, but still do a bulk of their software sales
traditionally, there are companies like Adobe who are doing essentially all of
their software sales via the cloud.
Check out http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html
for more information.
As mentioned above, typically pricing is based upon a
monthly or yearly subscription. As a
result, first time setup can be more inexpensive than traditional enterprise
software. Using Saas, it’s made it
easier for vendors to charge clients based on other pricing parameters. Some of these options include charging by how
many users have an application or charging per transaction, event, or unit of
value. These alternative pricing
structures can allow for businesses to scale appropriately, cheaply, and pretty
much on demand.
Some other advantages to software as a service include ease
of customization, accelerated updates, and ability to collaborate. While customization can be very limited,
SaaS still offers a higher level than traditional software packages. Accelerated updates means that updates come
much, much more frequently than traditional packages. Since the software is hosted centrally,
updates come from the provider, not from customer initiation. Also, since the provider has access to all
user behavior, it’s easier for them, through the use of analytics, to figure
out which features are in most need of improvement. The ability to collaborate is also a happy side
effect to being centrally hosted. Users
can comment on and share documents as well as many other collaborative
features. This would not
be possible without
the central server.
It’s not that I want to end this post on a bad note by any
means, but I just want to leave you privy to the risks of SaaS before you
go. Here are some of the top risks
according to brighthub.com. You can follow the link at the bottom of this post
for further reading.
- Companies subject to SOX regulations must ensure that adequate controls are in place to satisfy regulatory requirements
- Risk of unauthorized access, especially when customer information is involved
- Vendor viability. If your SaaS vendor goes down, the infrastructure they provide goes down too
- Legal Risks. The legal risks and liability should be clearly understood before implementing SaaS
·
These risks and many others that can present themselves aren't
isolated to use of software as a service.
One thing to keep in mind as you explore the IT world for your best
solutions, make sure you do plenty of research of the risks involved. SaaS may or may not be right for you.
Posted by Eric Sitzmann
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