SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service, is software that is hosted, updated, and supported by a vendor and that software is usually accessed through the Internet (either through a website, or widget, etc.). When you’re considering adding services to your business website, you will probably run across SAAS vendors and it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages before you make a decision:
Advantages
- No software and hardware to maintain – The SaaS vendor provides all the support.
- Frees up internal support resources for other tasks.
- Ongoing fees mean you can quit using the system at any time.
- Usually get enterprise-level services for much lower costs.
- Often SaaS vendors have a large customer base to provide feedback, which can be beneficial for quality assurance.
- SaaS vendors are often able to roll out new features (and bug fixes) very quickly since the software is running on their systems.
Disadvantages
- No control over updates – The software will automatically be updated by the vendor, giving you little control over whether you want those updates.
- Harder to maintain change control – If you have other systems that interact with the SaaS product, updates and changes to it may cause problems when the changes are unexpected or unexplained.
- Little control over new features – While SaaS customers certainly have some input, you will have much less than software developed in-house. But about the same level of input over vendor software installed and running internally.
- Ongoing fees may be difficult to budget compared to one-time fees.
- No ownership of software – must continue investment with ongoing service fees.
- Lack of flexibility – You are at the mercy of the vendor. Jeremiah Owyang has a good article with more information and a good discussion – The Problem With SaaS – Lack of Flexibility.
If you use SaaS services, what has your experience been? Any advantages or disadvantages I missed? Please share in the comments below.
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