Saas at Your Service

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native software application and hosts and operates (either independently or through a third-party) the application for use by its customers over the Internet. Customers do not pay for owning the software itself but rather for using it. They use it through an API accessible over the Web and often written using web services. The term SaaS has become the industry preferred term, generally replacing the earlier terms Application Service Provider (ASP) and on demand.

SaaS applications are generally priced on a per-user basis, sometimes with a relatively small minimum number of users, and often with additional fees for extra bandwidth and storage. SaaS revenue streams to the vendor are therefore lower initially than traditional software license fees, but are also recurring, and therefore viewed as more predictable, much like maintenance fees for licensed software.

A simple and concrete example of SaaS are the free email systems offered on the Internet such as Microsoft Hotmail, G-mail and Yahoo Mail. Each program meets the basic criteria of an SaaS application; a vendor (Microsoft, Google or Yahoo) hosts all of the programs, logic and data in a central location and provides end users access to this data and the software which is run and used over the world-wide web.

To learn more about customizable SaaS porgrams from Tuppas Software inc., and recieve a free demo, you can visit: http://www.tuppas.com/saas-software/saas-software.htm