7 March 2009 by Simon Mone
I've been reading a lot about Software as a Service (SaaS) recently and find myself getting quite excited by the whole business model.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia...
Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support.
There is a bit more to it than this of course. The description above could be of application service provider models that failed to take off in the past or current more successful hosted solutions. SaaS has some is more than these. Multi tenancy is a key feature, it's not just the same software that you would install on your network but on a remote server. Ease of ownership, ease of use, rental model, no recurring software maintenance costs and only one vendor (everything is wrapped up in one monthly fee).
The idea is particularly attractive in these troubled economic times for many reasons;
- there are no hardware costs
- no ongoing internal IT support costs
- no set up costs (a true SaaS model has self sign up)
- try before you buy
- predictable recurring costs
- scalability (down as well as up)
- and on and on
We have had an offering based on the Pepperio platform (not quite SaaS yet but getting there) for some time but we've not really bought into the model from a sales perspective. We have been more focussed on our main client base.
These days, however, even the size of client we have been more used to dealing with should consider SaaS as a provision model for their WCM implementation. The functional capabilities of the SaaS WCM is no different to the on premise alternative, it is easier to scale, there are no upgrade projects to finance, no technical staff to recruit and retain, no web development company to try and contact whenever you want to do something simple and we can see great examples everywhere of SaaS success.
Facebook
Linked-in
News and blogs
Twitter
We saved hundreds of man hours by using the Mim:switch migration tool. Mimtech were always responsive, flexible and professional in getting the job done.
