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Posted on 8th October 2024 |
Show only this post Show all posts in this thread (Software). |
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I feel that Forbes.com is being a little optimistic in this report. Saas (Software as a Service) has been around much longer (decades) than the 24 years that the Wikipedia article suggests, although under a different name. It is a kind of cloud service, so the user organisation does not own the software, but rents it; the software runs on one or more cloud servers managed by the software provider. It is commonly used for enterprise software like billing, customer care and accounting systems. Forbes.com argues that user organisations are getting tired of paying every year for their software, but this argument is flawed. For enterprise software, even if you buy the software and run it on your own servers, you have to pay a licence fee every year. Some aspects of the SaaS business model are very annoying, but it fulfills an important niche in the software market. Software vendors, Microsoft included, are still rolling out SaaS versions of their products and bullying their customers to change over to SaaS. Office-360 is an example of SaaS that they are currently promoting. Since the Microsofts of this world are only just recently getting on the SaaS train, I think the trend is far from over. | |