SaaS

Business Challenge: Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is rapidly gaining momentum. ISVs are designing their solutions as online, subscription services to open up underserved markets and new revenue streams. ISPs are looking to add content to their portfolio’s by offering applications to increase differentiation, transaction volumes and ARPU. And customers are demanding greater choice, convenience and responsiveness in their application experience.

Leading industry analysts expect the SaaS market to grow anywhere between $15 to $20 billion by 2011.

SaaS is a new way of thinking about delivering software applications. Solutions need to be designed and architected for the multi-tenant environment and support many customers on one instance of code. Typically, they should allow customers to trial SaaS solutions for free without having to invest in software and hardware. Vendors must also create and manage innovative subscription models that include software, maintenance, upgrades and on-demand support.

Application streaming is the next generation of software distribution architectures and is acclaimed to be the successor to Thin Client technologies. It offers an alternative to retrofitting packaged software for hosting in a multi-tenant environment. Application Streaming uses the same principals seen in audio and video streaming and offers a distribution methodology for controlling and managing the delivery of application content to the end user.

The advantages of Application Jukebox's approach to SaaS are:

  • New revenue opportunities - the application cache can be freely distributed on CD/DVD through retail stores. The user would simply install the Application Jukebox Player with pre-loaded application(s), connect to the Internet (which would automatically stream any update data, not a whole new application) and subscribe to the software service on offer.
  • Complete license management control - With Application Jukebox's advanced license management capabilities, software is guaranteed to be removed after a subscription has expired.
  • Reduced total cost of ownership – by allowing the service provider to rapidly deliver desktop applications, upgrades and patches to their customers as they need it, when they need it and where they need it on a "pull" application delivery model.
  • No compatibility and stability issues - by isolating the streamed application from other applications configuration/run environment and dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of delivering applications.
  • Full application management control - the on demand service ensures that the latest release of the application is always accessible and application maintenance releases are automatically detected and instantly made available.
  • Reduced administration headaches- central administration eliminates the need to recall or visit the client computer. By isolating the streamed applications, ISVs and ISPs can guarantee software stability with an immediate roll out of new builds to their users.

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