SaaS is a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops, hosts and operates a web-based software application for use by customers over the Internet. Customers pay a monthly subscription fee for the use of the software, without owning it. This eliminates large upfront investments and time consuming implementation projects.
The SaaS market in numbers:
By 2011, 25% of all new business software will be delivered as “Software as a Service” (SaaS)
By 2010, 20% of companies deploying e-commerce will use a SaaS delivery model. SaaS will grow 7 times faster than on-premises software deployments during the next 3 years
With an estimated 10 million companies using SaaS worldwide in the next 5-10 years, the SaaS industry will provide business opportunities for more than 200,000 partner companies
It is roughly 10 times more expensive to buy and maintain infrastructure than to outsource
Using off-shore services, it is still 174% more expensive to upgrade your applications than to subscribe
Source: Gartner Research 2006 and Software & Information Industry Association 2007
