Posted by Simon Dadswell, Channel Marketing Manager, Endeavors Technologies.
SaaS (Software as a Service) has become a very fashionable term in recent months and there is no doubt that SaaS adoption is rising in the workplace. (Leading industry analysts Gartner believes SaaS will account for over a quarter of all enterprise software sales by 2011). However, as with any fashionable subject, a flurry of new and existing vendors with many different types of products has jumped on the bandwagon. This can be very confusing, and inevitably leads to different interpretations of what SaaS is, and should be. And many of these technologies do not fully live up to the underlying requirements of SaaS.
Web Applications/Web 2.0: Some associate SaaS with Web Applications/Web 2.0 – where an application is completely re-coded in a browser-supported language and accessed via a browser over the Internet. Over the last few years, many of the big software vendors have rushed out to re-write their legacy applications as Web applications in order to exploit the commercial opportunities SaaS offers. Their objectives have been to combat the onslaught of web-native competition and achieve new SaaS revenue streams. They have often hired SaaS outsource partners who have their own server farms and an army of IT guys to complete large projects to recode their software. And when their Web based variations are born they do not work offline and suffer performance degradation as the network becomes congested and/or more users/applications access the server in a SaaS environment.
Web Native Companies: Others associate SaaS with web based service ‘companies’ who are characterized by their software, implementation, integration, and customer support services, built specifically for multi-tenant Internet delivery e.g. Salesforce.com. In fact, Wikipedia go as far as defining SaaS as “a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native software application and hosts and operates (either independently or through a third-party) the application for use by its customers over the Internet”.
Virtual Desktop: Many confuse SaaS with virtual desktop environments. Applications that run under these environments are typically limited by traditional client server and terminal services technologies, where each user’s applications are resident and executed on the server and “pushed” to the desktop. As the load of the servers increase, the performance of individual user systems reduces.
SaaS definition: Endeavors contend that SaaS is more generic than these narrow definitions, and that it should be expressed as any service where applications are available “on-demand”, whenever and wherever the user wants to use them. SaaS is about a new mindset which is broader than retrofitting legacy applications into a SaaS environment or being locked-in by the distributed computing era. It is all about managing user’s access experience and removing the complexities of a multi-tenant environment:
- Allowing operators to distribute software and also manage and support the entire software deployment lifecycle centrally including installing, updating, and removing the software
- Offering an environment where users can execute software as a self-service model, install software quickly, and execute as if the software were locally installed on the machine, and if so desired, on a pay-per use model
- Providing SaaS requirements such as self-service, rapid deployment and digital rights management (DRM) functionality, including software usage monitoring, instant enabling and disabling, revoking, and copy protection
- Eliminating concerns of software conflicts, large disk space requirements, and difficult installation and configuration details
- Enabling users to have more trust in software delivered over the Internet
These characteristics can be found in application virtualization and streaming.
Application virtualization and streaming is a fast emerging SaaS platform for delivering desktop applications on demand to client devices for local execution. It offers an alternative to local desktop installation and gives users on demand access and self-service to desktop applications from anywhere. Application virtualization and streaming exploits the processing power of the client machine so that the applications perform as it would if locally installed. The great thing about it is there is no added complexity with software management and upgrades. Service providers do not need to worry about the logistics of rolling out a release. They can have more or less frequent releases as needed and they are implemented instantly across the entire client base, with zero-compromise to performance, security and user experience.
This is why application virtualization and streaming solution is the best, and only effective, solution for SaaS.
