Software as a Service

Software as a Service or SaaS is a software that is made available on the internet and is run behind a firewall in LAN (local area network) or on a personal computer. It is a method of selling software where a vendor or a service provider licenses an application to a customer that is used as a service on demand.

Some of the general traits that SaaS exhibits are

• Management of software that is available commercially
• Managing activities from certain specific central location rather than managing them separately at each site
• Feature updating that is centralized
• Releasing new features faster, since a large number of customers are benefited

SaaS is a much less expensive software that companies can use as per their requirement instead of licensing all devices with all applications. By using this software, small and medium businesses can seek to reduce capital investment which can be incurred in terms of software licenses, skilled IT manpower, infrastructure etc.

The benefits of using SaaS as a software model are

• Reduced costs since money is not spent on purchasing software or servers to support use.
• The working of an organisation becomes more flexible.
• A portion of the budget can be diverted to other area since there are no infrastructure costs. Its feedback mechanism gives more power to a layman. It constantly provides feedback on what works and what does not.
• The custom versions of big software packages can be used at lower costs.
• The risk of acquiring a new software is not there.

The idea behind developing this software is that instead of purchasing and installing expensive software packages, these can be accessed by the customers on a network. The only thing that is necessary is an Internet browser.

It should be kept in mind that this software is provided to the customer as a service and not as a product. The focus here is mainly on what the consumer wants rather than on what can the vendor provide.

However, there are certain issues that SaaS needs to keep in mind. These are improving response time, improvement in scalability so that scaling is done according to the load, making sure that a client's specific data is safeguarded, making it available 24X7 and making it compatible with almost all operating systems.

Having tackled these issues, SaaS would surely attract attention. With the benefits it provides, it is certain to finds wide usage. 

If you would like to learn more about SaaS or PaaS and how to obtain the source code then please Click Here