Software as a service comes of age

We've been hearing about Software as a Service (SaaS) for years now, but until recently there haven't been solid offerings to back up the hype. Early SaaS products died out because they couldn't scale and were not supported by a sound business model. But cheap, plentiful broadband access and reduced licensing fees for server software are changing the landscape. According to IDC, SaaS is one of the fastest growing segments of the software industry, with sales of $10 billion expected in 2009.

There are some potential pitfalls for SaaS, however. This approach is not well-suited to truly mission critical software. Even three-nines (99.9 percent) uptime can be difficult to achieve with SaaS. Additionally, it is difficult to ensure security with software running as a service.

For more about SaaS:
- read this article in Optimize