How do you think SaaS will change the SW industry?
So far SaaS has changed the way many SW developers distribute their products. Some developers has also implemented both online marketing and online product presentations in their business package, but most SW developers still plan, design and code their products the way the have always done it. How do you think the SaaS marketplace will change the future of the SW industry?
Answers (4)
Well i guess that in the future most SW used will be net based, so I believe SaaS has a good chance to make it!
Read the following reports on Saas from:
McKinsey: The Mckinsey Quarterly Web Exclusive, May 2007
IDC Worldwide and US Software as a Service 2005-2009 Forecast and Analysis: Adoption for the alternative delivery model continues, IDC, March 2005
New start-ups focused on applications should heed!
SaaS is a rapidly growing space, with lots of interest from the enterprise. There are good case studies to indicate that it will reduce TCO both in the short and the long run. However, it is yet to prove itself as a viable substitute for critical business application running today's Fortune companies.
Do you think Banks are going to trust any third-party vendor to store critical financial transactions, who [Saas] by the way, can potentially host their competitor's information as well? I think besides "Confidentiality", "Availability" is the other question that SaaS vendors need to address. Recently Amazon's web services were plagued by multiple outages leaving many customers in lurch.
Clarification added February 25, 2008:
Just to add to the above, SaaS seems to be the next exotic thing on horizon for SW industry, albeit I think companies will continue to develop and use traditional software unless SaaS proves itself as a viable "bread-winning" avenue for software developers and companies.
Rajesh V
architect @HCL
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (2), Career Management (1), Enterprise Software (1), Databases (1), Software Development (1), Web Development (1)
There are multiple schools of thoughts about defining the nature of SaaS. The microsoft school says its Software + Services. Others say its only "Services". The term has been interpreted in many ways. Personally I see SaaS as a delivery mode with variation in "what" is being delivered.
1) There can online apps with offline capabilities. i.e. applications providing the capability to work even without an internet connection and can sync up work once the n/w is available. This is were we are eventually moving to. Here the apps and management both are delivered from the cloud.
2) Apps being on-premise but management being the service that is delivered. Appliances are the strategy here. Have an appliance along with pre-configured software installed and managed remotely. Data resides internal to the corporate boundaries. Management/availability is outsourced. We do have a long way to go in this model since n/w availability is crucial.
The ideal future that I can think of destroys network boundaries and provide seamless operations. Basically you dont care where the software exists. You get access.
But usually ideal is too far fetched in this industry:). The future holds probably 3 or 4 biggies playing critical roles. Their profiles are probably visible now. One would be infrastructure providers (Provide Infrastructure on demand) and the other being Platform providers.
Standard to migrate data between providers will emerge allowing movement of customers from one provider to another. This I think is the single most largest challenge that needs to be broken.
Despite Gartner and IDC's prediction I see the market highly fragmented by 2010. Stacks will be on sale. SaaS provides an advantage in terms of allowing software to run in a homogeneous environment. This single most factor would drive large product companies to create stacks with tight integration between them enabling ISV's to deliver their products with little effort. But these stacks would be the actual software that will be on sale.
All "solutions" that actually solves human process problems would be delivered as a service. The only things that will still remain software would be software that enables work with a computer like OS's, Databases, App Servers, Integration Servers, Email Servers and the lot.
SOA would be the key to provide the mythical "seamless integration" between data and process alternating between on premise and on the cloud.
Rajesh V
