Spec Book Pro Blog

SaaS: Software as a Service

Amy Wohl is a computer industry analyst who specializes in the commercialization of new technology. She has just started a blog on Software as a Service.

Spec Book Pro is Software as a Service.

Source: Amy Wohl's Opinions on SaaS

What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?

What does that mean?  It means that the software is implemented on one or more hosted systems and that new users simply set up their accounts, adding any necessary information and making personal (or organizational) choices from among the selections the software provides.  The new users select a payment method (typically credit cards for individual users and small businesses, more conventional purchase agreements for larger organizations) and the software is ready to use. 

This method avoids the need to justify capital expenditures for hardware and software, much less the wait for its arrival and implementation.  It also places the burden for support on the service provider, allowing the users' organization to tend to their business's primary focus, whether that's writing about technology (me) or building widgets.

Who Buys SaaS?

Customers from organizations of any size may be attracted to SaaS.

• Small firms like SaaS because it allows them access to software which might otherwise be too costly or complex for a smaller firm to implement or support.
• Big firms like SaaS because it permits nearly immediate Time to Value with no wait for justification or implementation.  It also avoids, as we've noted, capital expenditures and internal support costs.  Big firms often use SaaS to support ad hoc or short term projects; software which will be used only occasionally or by small numbers of employees,;applications which need to be available outside of the firewall to partners, contractors, suppliers, or customes; and support for smaller sites and individual remote users.

Why Software As A Service?

Spec Book Pro is software as a service.

Source: Partnerworld Industry Networks : Blogs : Amy Wohl.

This represents a clear change from a few years ago when software services were still considered oddities, reserved for something special, or to address a market that it was hard to sell traditional, packaged software to.

In the meantime, several things occurred:

(1) We became much more familiar and comfortable with using the ubiquitous web.

(2) We got a lot smarter about how to write software that exploited the Internet (rather than merely trying to repurpose software written for traditional implementation onto the Internet). This blog has addressed this issue many times, so we'll just mention two items in passing -- writing software that permits the user to be their own system administrator and writing software that permits multi-tenancy (many users to share a single server in a secure fashion).

(3) We discovered that customers were willing to make a different set of trade-offs in purchasing software:

-- Lower prices could justify less customization
-- Instant (or nearly instant) implementation and immediate usability could justify less control
-- Being able to outsource non-critical applications could free up scarce IT resources for higher priority projects

(4) The idea of where an office is or who's on a team changed radically. Today, offices can be anywhere, from the brick-and-mortar offices of the past to cars, hotel rooms, and desks at home. Teams are not just fellow employees, but may also include contractors, suppliers, and customers. In both cases, providing them with common on-line workspaces and access to applications and data is much easier in the flexible, dynamic world of a Software Service than in the behind-the-firewall world of IT, with its necessarily tighter security rules and project lag cycles.

via Emergic.org

Spec Book Pro is software as a service.

Source: Partnerworld Industry Networks : Blogs : Amy Wohl.

This represents a clear change from a few years ago when software services were still considered oddities, reserved for something special, or to address a market that it was hard to sell traditional, packaged software to.

In the meantime, several things occurred:

(1) We became much more familiar and comfortable with using the ubiquitous web.

(2) We got a lot smarter about how to write software that exploited the Internet (rather than merely trying to repurpose software written for traditional implementation onto the Internet). This blog has addressed this issue many times, so we'll just mention two items in passing -- writing software that permits the user to be their own system administrator and writing software that permits multi-tenancy (many users to share a single server in a secure fashion).

(3) We discovered that customers were willing to make a different set of trade-offs in purchasing software:

-- Lower prices could justify less customization
-- Instant (or nearly instant) implementation and immediate usability could justify less control
-- Being able to outsource non-critical applications could free up scarce IT resources for higher priority projects

(4) The idea of where an office is or who's on a team changed radically. Today, offices can be anywhere, from the brick-and-mortar offices of the past to cars, hotel rooms, and desks at home. Teams are not just fellow employees, but may also include contractors, suppliers, and customers. In both cases, providing them with common on-line workspaces and access to applications and data is much easier in the flexible, dynamic world of a Software Service than in the behind-the-firewall world of IT, with its necessarily tighter security rules and project lag cycles.

via Emergic.org

Web-based applications

Spec Book Pro is a Web-based application.

Source: The Internet Changes Everything...Finally!.

Remember the days when you had to install software, manage upgrades to the new version, back up your servers, handle hard disk crashes, and generally be on call 24 hours a day for software and hardware emergencies? At this point you are probably thinking "What are you talking about -- that's my life today." That's because for most growing businesses the experience of implementing software is still a huge, expensive, distracting headache.

Well, here's some good news: The same approach to running software that makes your online bank or bookseller so hassle-free for you is available to businesses for the applications they use every day. And as a growing business, you are actually the best positioned to take advantage of this oncoming wave of technology: Web-based Applications.

You may have heard of these new style applications described as ASPs (Application Service Providers), On-demand applications, or Hosted software. All those terms mean the same thing: Your application vendor hosts and maintains the software and the hardware to run it so you don't have to.

The types of applications that are available using this approach run the gamut from pure business applications to group calendars, HR and workflow applications, and specialized applications for different industries. Some applications that use substantial resources on the PC, such as 3D modeling programs, are the laggards -- but with faster networking technology even those types of programs may succumb to this trend.

Software-as-a-Service and On Demand

Link: AMR Research: A Guide to Software-as-a-Service and On Demand; Hint, They Are Not the Same.

SaaS by its very nature offers a number of benefits over licensed software or traditional hosting models:

• Software shifts from a fixed cost to a variable cost since a customer only pays for the software consumed (such as seats actually deployed). This may require some new ways of budgeting, but minimizes wasted spending on software.
• The SaaS model dramatically lowers switching costs, forcing software providers to sustain higher levels of customer satisfaction and deliver better product functionality to ensure broad user adoption. 
• SaaS requires relatively low start-up costs beyond initial application configuration. This lower cost of entry also enables small and departmental deployments, without any increased burden on IT resources or compromises in product quality. 
• SaaS reduces the pain of upgrades. Customers automatically remain current on releases, despite spending minimal effort in the upgrades. Consequently, vendors are able to offer more targeted customer support while focusing on a single version.
• SaaS gives software providers real-time customer feedback. Savvy vendors continually monitor usage of their application and apply this insight toward continued product enhancements.

Conclusion: Benefits derived from SaaS have helped overcome a number of stumbling blocks, most notably in customer management. Highly publicized implementation failures and rumblings of user adoption problems with on-premises projects have left a wake of shelfware, frequently coloring customer management as a riskier investment. The SaaS model, however, directly addresses many of these objections, therefore making it an attractive, lower risk option for small and large enterprises alike.

Spec Book Pro is software-as-a-service.

The Flexibility of a Web Application

I was in Jackson, Wyoming, last week on vacation. I walked into an "Internet Cafe" (where you can rent a PC by the minute/hour) and logged in to Spec Book Pro. I selected a project, created a Spec Book, and looked at the PDF file of the specs. It took one minute.

Web applications are designed to work from almost anywhere. You need a web browser and an internet connection. That's all.

Imagine the interior designer who is on vacation and gets a call that a spec needs to be changed – find an Internet cafe.

Imagine the interior design firm that is overloaded with projects – hire an interior designer who cannot commute to the office with a child in kindergarten, but can work 4 hours a day for several months. She works from home.

Flexibility!

Spec Book Pro is a Web Application

The following includes some technical jargon, but it is important information for anyone shopping for spec-writing software.

Source: Rands In Repose: The Web Application Leap.

There are two phenomenal advantages of web applications. First, they require zero installation. They may require some configuration, but, as soon as you click on the link, you've "installed" the application. This is a big deal, but not as big of a deal as the second part, no upgrades. The maintenance of a web application to the end user is zero and end users will really like that. End users may not notice the absence of install/upgrades because they just vanish, but your IT guy/gal, the person responsible for installing every damn bit on your desktop, they drool over the idea of web applications. All they have to do is upgrade the server and then everyone gets the new version. Web applications can save IT departments a stunning amount of money.

The second advantage of the web application is that it has no baggage. The only thing you really need to gain access to your web application is a name, a password, and a connection to the Internet. This means you have access to whatever information your web application manages from any Internet computer on the Planet Earth as long as you can remember your name and password.

Software as a Service

Spec Book Pro is software as a service.

EMERGIC.org summarizes the Wall Street Journal on IBM's strategy for software:

IBM is stepping up its efforts to help software makers make a transition into the business of "software as a service."

IBM launched a program offering tools and support to help software makers roll out the new business strategy, a move away from the industry's traditional licensing model. With software as a service, one company hosts the software application, such as for payroll management or accounting, and provides those capabilities remotely for client companies.

IBM's move is part of a trend in the software industry as it diversifies away from the traditional model of selling software as a product. The service model allows customers to pay for usage and is seen as reducing the risk and costs of owning and maintaining software for information-technology buyers.

The software-services model is taking hold after originally falling short in the late 1990s. Research firm IDC estimates that the software-as-a-service market will grow to a $10 billion industry by 2009, from $4.2 billion last year. "It's a market that's finally coming into its prime," said Laurie McCabe, vice president with market-research firm AMI-Partners.