Software as a Service

Traditionally, individuals or businesses that needed to use third-party software had to buy licenses for the software and install it on their computers or servers. If the software was updated, every computer that it was installed on would need to be updated, even if it was automated. This takes effort, and licenses had to be paid for upfront. If users did not need all the licenses they purchased, then the investment in both the hardware and the software licenses would be wasted.

The concept of cloud computing or the on-demand and pay-per-use model was extended to the software applications by many application providers. With SaaS, the software is accessible over the Internet using a web browser. It offers almost the same features and functions as the locally installed software. Users can pay for the license as long as they use the application and stop paying the moment as they don't need it anymore. Upgrades to the application and new features are automatically available to the users without taking any action.

The concept of cloud computing or the on-demand and pay-per-use model was extended to the software applications by many application providers. Traditionally, individuals or businesses had to buy licenses for software and install it on their computers or servers. This process takes effort, and licenses had to be paid for upfront for some time. If users did not need the license, then this investment would be considered wasted. With SaaS, the software is accessible over the Internet using a web browser. It offers almost exactly the same features and functions as the locally installed software. Users can pay for the license as long as they use the application and stop paying the moment as they don't need it anymore. Upgrades to the application and new features are automatically available to the users without taking any action.

For home users, one example of this is Microsoft Office, one of the most widely used suites of application for word processing, financial calculations, and making presentations. While traditionally, every computer needed a licensed installation of the application, today, Office is available as a SaaS solution. Users can pay only for the required time and access the software over the Internet. They are not tied to the computer the application is installed on but can use it from anywhere using any computer connected to the Internet. For businesses, one example is databases as a service. Instead of incurring the overhead of installing and managing their own databases, they can use a SaaS offering. All they have to do is migrate their data, and the SaaS provider will take care of ensuring uptime, taking backups, and keeping the data secure.

Productivity Applications

Several productivity applications are offered and widely used today by businesses and individuals.

Some of the most popular SaaS solutions include:

• Office Applications

  For many years we have been used to installing very popular applications from Microsoft, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Microsft has now introduced these applications as a SaaS solution known as Office365. By paying for a subscription to this service, you can use the applications using a web browser from any computer, allowing you access even if you don't have your computer with you.

• Email applications

  Most of us use email extensively for personal communication. If it wasn't for SaaS products such as Gmail from Google and many others, individuals would not have been able to use personal email since it is difficult if not impossible for each person to install an email server.

• Storage Solutions

  Several companies offer storage and the application to upload and download files as a service, such as Google Drive. While most computers have sufficient storage space, the value of using a SaaS storage solution is that you can access your files from anywhere in the world even if you don't have your computer with you.

Business Applications

Several widely used business applications are available in the SaaS model. All of them save businesses both cost and time and the effort of installing and managing local versions of software.

Some examples include:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM), such as Salesforce, which is one of the most widely used cloud-based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software allows sales and marketing teams to manage leads and prospects on the cloud with the functionality and data being accessible from anywhere and from any device.

• Campaign Management, such as MailChimp, allows you to capture your user registration details from your website and then manage targeted email or social media campaigns on the cloud.

• Ecommerce Systems, such as Shopify, allow stores to publish their product catalogs online and allow customers to browse and buy from the catalog, including completing payments.

See the illustration below to get an overview of cloud computing services: