February 17, 2011 at 17:10SaaS model in simple words
It so happened that I talked many times about what SaaS is and what is good in it, both at various it-conferences and in behind-the-scenes conversations, but until now I have not had to write on the topic. At the same time, the SaaS model is, firstly, essentially native to me, given the scope of activity, and secondly, it is one of the main trends in modern web technologies. In this regard, I want to talk about SaaS, as such, and in the future, if it turns out to be interesting, about particular aspects. In fact, the material is about basic things, but it is precisely this understanding that many lack. But one should at least try to talk about complex things simply. It helps.
I want to say one thing right away, SaaS is a specialized term and, if you start digging into it, it’s complicated. He can bring not only longing, but also a certain awe. But actually it’s a simple thing. To use any SaaS product, including ours, it’s absolutely not necessary to understand the deep, and even superficial meaning of this term. Moreover, when uCoz was created, none of the developers themselves even heard such a word. It was just that there were products that had inherently a common model, and then they began to somehow classify it, highlight features, pros, cons.
If you made web technologies your vocation or hobby, or are thinking about which type of products is most suitable for you personally, which are the most promising, etc., all this can be interesting and useful.
Much has been written about SaaS, and you can start learning, for example, from a Wikipedia article . But, as a rule, all this information from there is rather hard to perceive. As a result, it seems to be what we are talking about, but why a person needs it remains unclear. And if you ask to tell a person what he just read about, then, again, not everyone can. It turns out the classic situation: “I understand everything, but I can’t explain.”
Therefore, I will try to simplify as much as possible and consider the model of providing software as a service, as a service, on the simplest examples.
Often SaaS is considered as a business model , and it is often mistakenly equated with a lease , which, although it has common features, but the main essence is still different. In this case, as a rule, the technological feature of the model is interesting, but not the order and periodization of payment.
When we consume a particular service as a service, and not as a software installed at our place, already at that moment, as a rule, we become consumers of SaaS. The simplest and most widely used SaaS service is an email service - the same gmail .
To organize the work of email yourself from scratch, you must:
Actually, in many organizations mail works in a similar way today, it is serviced by a full-time system administrator, or even a whole staff of specialists, depending on the size of the organization and its infrastructure.
End users and the mass consumer do not use such a thing. He does not use the mail of his provider, although as early as 12 years ago almost everyone used it, and the mail was taken exclusively by pop3. Web interfaces for working with mail were in their infancy. Today, the vast majority use mail via the web. And even people who are tenderly called geeks, even they are often transplanted to the web interface from mail clients. This does not mean that everyone will soon move to such a model of consuming mail, there are specific tasks, wild power of habit happens, but for most today it’s convenient and practical just like that. Everything is here: reliability, simplicity and even safety play into the hands. Not only private users, but also entire companies, in some cases even corporations, are switching to such decisions.Google , and Yandex , Zoho and several others.
Mail, by and large, is the simplest example, and the most massive. At least due to the fact that the vast majority of network users use e-mail, but far from everyone needs some CRM, ERP systems, or the same site builders. They have a narrower circle of consumers. But already a lot of software products can be found in the form of services. In some cases, they, of course, still lag behind their desktop counterparts, but often give their consumers advantages. Almost always, this is expressed precisely in the simplicity of operation, in the drop in maintenance needs, in economic feasibility, simply put, in the cheapness of such a solution and approach. Other advantages depend mainly on a specific area, in some cases this is a higher degree of security, in others, unprecedentedly convenient synchronization and the availability of comfortable multi-user work , due to cloud storage.
That would not be sprayed on general words and characteristics, I suggest looking at examples. The most ordinary.
More often than others, as examples of using SaaS solutions, one can come across project management systems , and collaboration on them, online organizers , document management systems . They are all at your fingertips and many are already using them, without thinking about the ideology of such services and scary smart abbreviations.
As I said, you don't have to go far for examples. Work with documents? Please - this is a popular google docs, which allows you to abandon Word, Excel, and get a number of advantages, primarily related to the possibilities of collaboration on documents. Moreover, a number of companies have such solutions - both Microsoft, Zoho and others have it.
Online organizers, in principle, are more than enough, as well as general systems for organizing work, maintaining todo. Take, for example , our calendar and webtop project management system , or similar google solutions, or the famous products of the 37 signal system: basecamp, backpack.
The third (not obvious) example is online games. Of course, they are not accepted as SaaS-solutions, but today they have become available as services, with the same ideology. Most often it is MMORPG. Just in case, let me remind you that games are the same programs, and, for example, Microsoft Xbox Live very clearly classifies itself as a SaaS product .
What were all these examples for? Moreover, the software presented as a service has long been around us. Both the market and ourselves use SaaS more often than we think. Convenience, simplicity, economy and other advantages of SaaS win the hearts of consumers without explaining their complex device and model philosophy to them.
I hope this publication for someone made the term SaaS not as mysterious and scary as it seemed before, and its triumph in the future is finally obvious.
I want to say one thing right away, SaaS is a specialized term and, if you start digging into it, it’s complicated. He can bring not only longing, but also a certain awe. But actually it’s a simple thing. To use any SaaS product, including ours, it’s absolutely not necessary to understand the deep, and even superficial meaning of this term. Moreover, when uCoz was created, none of the developers themselves even heard such a word. It was just that there were products that had inherently a common model, and then they began to somehow classify it, highlight features, pros, cons.
If you made web technologies your vocation or hobby, or are thinking about which type of products is most suitable for you personally, which are the most promising, etc., all this can be interesting and useful.
Much has been written about SaaS, and you can start learning, for example, from a Wikipedia article . But, as a rule, all this information from there is rather hard to perceive. As a result, it seems to be what we are talking about, but why a person needs it remains unclear. And if you ask to tell a person what he just read about, then, again, not everyone can. It turns out the classic situation: “I understand everything, but I can’t explain.”
Therefore, I will try to simplify as much as possible and consider the model of providing software as a service, as a service, on the simplest examples.
Often SaaS is considered as a business model , and it is often mistakenly equated with a lease , which, although it has common features, but the main essence is still different. In this case, as a rule, the technological feature of the model is interesting, but not the order and periodization of payment.
When we consume a particular service as a service, and not as a software installed at our place, already at that moment, as a rule, we become consumers of SaaS. The simplest and most widely used SaaS service is an email service - the same gmail .
To organize the work of email yourself from scratch, you must:
- configure the server first;
- install specialized software on it, some kind of mail transfer agent (for example, Postfix), configure all this, and maintain it in the future;
- then install and configure an email client on your computer, for example, The bat or Thunderbird;
- Of course, all this will have to be monitored so that it continues to work, is not entered into the black lists of other mail servers, fight spam on its side, etc. etc.
Actually, in many organizations mail works in a similar way today, it is serviced by a full-time system administrator, or even a whole staff of specialists, depending on the size of the organization and its infrastructure.
End users and the mass consumer do not use such a thing. He does not use the mail of his provider, although as early as 12 years ago almost everyone used it, and the mail was taken exclusively by pop3. Web interfaces for working with mail were in their infancy. Today, the vast majority use mail via the web. And even people who are tenderly called geeks, even they are often transplanted to the web interface from mail clients. This does not mean that everyone will soon move to such a model of consuming mail, there are specific tasks, wild power of habit happens, but for most today it’s convenient and practical just like that. Everything is here: reliability, simplicity and even safety play into the hands. Not only private users, but also entire companies, in some cases even corporations, are switching to such decisions.Google , and Yandex , Zoho and several others.
Mail, by and large, is the simplest example, and the most massive. At least due to the fact that the vast majority of network users use e-mail, but far from everyone needs some CRM, ERP systems, or the same site builders. They have a narrower circle of consumers. But already a lot of software products can be found in the form of services. In some cases, they, of course, still lag behind their desktop counterparts, but often give their consumers advantages. Almost always, this is expressed precisely in the simplicity of operation, in the drop in maintenance needs, in economic feasibility, simply put, in the cheapness of such a solution and approach. Other advantages depend mainly on a specific area, in some cases this is a higher degree of security, in others, unprecedentedly convenient synchronization and the availability of comfortable multi-user work , due to cloud storage.
That would not be sprayed on general words and characteristics, I suggest looking at examples. The most ordinary.
More often than others, as examples of using SaaS solutions, one can come across project management systems , and collaboration on them, online organizers , document management systems . They are all at your fingertips and many are already using them, without thinking about the ideology of such services and scary smart abbreviations.
As I said, you don't have to go far for examples. Work with documents? Please - this is a popular google docs, which allows you to abandon Word, Excel, and get a number of advantages, primarily related to the possibilities of collaboration on documents. Moreover, a number of companies have such solutions - both Microsoft, Zoho and others have it.
Online organizers, in principle, are more than enough, as well as general systems for organizing work, maintaining todo. Take, for example , our calendar and webtop project management system , or similar google solutions, or the famous products of the 37 signal system: basecamp, backpack.
The third (not obvious) example is online games. Of course, they are not accepted as SaaS-solutions, but today they have become available as services, with the same ideology. Most often it is MMORPG. Just in case, let me remind you that games are the same programs, and, for example, Microsoft Xbox Live very clearly classifies itself as a SaaS product .
What were all these examples for? Moreover, the software presented as a service has long been around us. Both the market and ourselves use SaaS more often than we think. Convenience, simplicity, economy and other advantages of SaaS win the hearts of consumers without explaining their complex device and model philosophy to them.
I hope this publication for someone made the term SaaS not as mysterious and scary as it seemed before, and its triumph in the future is finally obvious.