Software as a Service (saas)

SaaS is a new model of how software is delivered. SaaS refers to software that is accessed via a web browser and is paid on a subscription basis (monthly or yearly). Different from the traditional model where a customer buys a license to software and assumes ownership for its maintenance and installation, SaaS presents significant advantages to the customer.

SaaS is faster and a cost effective way to getting implemented. There are no hardware, implementation or acquisition costs involved to run the application from the customer's side. It's the responsibility of the SaaS vendor (us) to manage and run the application with utmost security, performance and reliability.

Since customers pay a subscription, they have immediate access to the new features and functionality. Unlike traditional softwares where upgrades would happen once a year or once in 6 months (with the vendor coming to your office with a CD), the SaaS vendor continuously pushes new updates, fixes to the application, which is immediately accessible by the customer. This reduces the length of time it takes a customer to recognize value from the software.

Since the software application is delivered as a service, its important for the vendor to focus on customer service and experience. Since this is on a subscription model, the vendor is judged on a month-month basis and the pressure to innovate or risk losing business is greater.

SaaS can be used by Windows, Linux, or Mac users, providing true platform independence over the Internet.

Pros:

• Customer saves money. Yes, even if they pay every month, at the end it becomes more profitable than buying license, spending money on tech person to install it, customize, maintain, client should also find and pay for data centre to keep his data, etc. With SaaS you just pay some fee every month or three months, and software provider does all the rest – customize, maintain, update and so on.
• Your client saves time. With SaaS all you need to start work is login and password from provider, that's easy as one-two-three.
• Customer saves his employees' time. First of all time of IT staff, as with SaaS they get completely ready to use software without installation, code generations, customization and so on.
• Nearly unlimited access. Users may be at work, at home, on Hawaii, all they need is computer or tablet or smart phone with Internet connection – and here you are necessary software is ready to be used. It is especially convenient for distributed companies or companies with many affiliates.
• Such software is absolutely scalable. When business grows and you need to add more users, you just move to more advanced package. There is no need to buy more licenses or install new software.
• Regular updates. Providers of SaaS usually never stop updating and improving there software in order to keep their subscribers. And to get an update is very easy, usually just a couple of clicks, and you already use new version.

Cons:

• Security. This is the main concern of SaaS users. As a client have to give all his data to the third party, he is usually very careful when choosing a SaaS provider.
• Customer is bound to one provider. If you use some software for a long time, you keep all your data on providers servers, it would be quite difficult to move to another SaaS if necessary.
• Outage. Unfortunately, it may occur. In such case a customer has to rely on provider in order to fix everything. Usually providers put this in the contract and in case they can't fix the problem quickly they return payment.
• Internet connection. This is the only but very necessary point for using SaaS. Check that your Internet provider is reliable and able to proceed big amounts of data.

SaaS may be a real advantage for a company, but it also can become a disaster. In order to make the right choice you need to specify your customers' characteristics and understand what would be most preferable for them.