Philosophy

As a term, SaaS is generally associated by software professionals and business associates with business software and is typically thought of as a low-cost way for businesses to obtain rights to use software as needed versus licensing all devices with all applications. The on demand licensing enables the benefits of commercially licensed use without the associated complexity and potential high initial cost of equipping every device with the applications that are only used when needed.


Virtually all software fits the SaaS model well. Many UNIX applications already have this functionality whereas EULA applications never had this flexibility before SaaS. A licensed copy of a word processor, for example, had to reside on the machine to create a document. The equipped program has no intrinsic value loaded on a computer that is turned off for the night. Worse yet, the same employee may need another fully paid license to write or edit a report at home on their own computer, while the work license is inoperable.

Remote administration software attempts to resolve this issue through sharing CPU controls instead of licensing on demand. While promising, it requires leaving the licensed host computer on and it creates security issues from the remote accessing to run an application. SaaS achieves efficiencies by enabling the on demand licensing and management of the information and output, independent of the hardware location.


SaaS applications differ from earlier applications delivered over the Internet in that SaaS solutions were developed specifically to leverage web technologies such as the browser, thereby making them web-native. The data design and architecture of SaaS applications are specifically built with a 'multi-tenant' backend, thus enabling multiple customers or users to access a shared data model. This further differentiates SaaS from client/server or 'ASP' (Application Service Provider) solutions in that SaaS providers leverage enormous economies of scale in deployment, management, and support and through the Software Development Lifecycle.