What is SaaS and do I really need to know?

Jul
9th

What is SaaS and do I really need to know?

July 9th, 2007 at 19:33 by Dean

Matt has pointed out some interesting new development in the social network space below, but whats happening in the business world?

Well, we are seeing a marked increase in the level of buzz / hype regarding SaaS (Software as a Service). SaaS basically replaces the concept of purchase and installable software with a subscribe and consume online method. So just like Facebook is an online application predominately aimed at the consumer space, applications like Salesforce.com and Netsuite and business productivity tools solely available online.

Why is this getting so much buzz right now?

For a number of reasons but primarily to do with cost. Its cheaper to delivery this type of software to the users (install / upgrade once and its available to all customers in real-time thereby bypassing lengthy upgrade / patch processes etc..) and therefore cheaper to purchase this type of software.

However, I think most small businesses are actually missing a beat with regard to SaaS models. Sure it lowers the total cost of ownership for the application but it also enables a lot of really interesting features.For example:-

Its now possible for the application to be integrated with lots of online applications via API’s such as those provided by Google, Facebook, Yahoo! etc.
Its possible to log every activity in the application via click through analysis to get a better understanding on how the application is used within your organisation and how best to streamline processes and procedures
You can implement “click to SMS” and “click to Call” functionality easily using common applications such as Skype or BT Communicator
You can share data more freely via open data formats / XML
You can share your data with users, customer, partners and suppliers quicker and easier.

So if you are a small business owner - yes you do need to understand what SaaS is but more importantly you need to start to experience its capability lest you get left behind in the technological arms race

regards

Dean

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This entry was posted by Dean on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is tagged with SaaS and is posted in the category PlusNet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

one comment on "What is SaaS and do I really need to know?"

Ian Wild said:
July 10th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

I worked on a big SaaS project two years ago, and firmly believe it's the way forwards for just about any application you can think of. The one note of warning I'd sound for anyone looking at this is that you need to make sure you are clear about who owns what data in this relationship.

If Salesforce.com or similar is managing your prospects and customer data, what are the implications if you want to move all of that to a different application? It can represent a great cost saving to buy an application monthly, but will you be stung by them to give you all your data in a suitably portable format? Or maybe the opposite is true, and part of their pitch will be that they will do just this - It's just something worth checking!

Peter Day (One of my favourite people) dedicated half an hour to this topic on the Radio 4 programme In Business a couple of months ago - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusiness/inbusiness_20070614.shtml

Well worth a listen if you are not familiar with this sort of service.

Ian