Software as a Service

Just some ramblings about SaaS

I saw a job oportuinity for a company that had a requirement for being in a SaaS environment. SaaS? Never heard of it. Well, turns out I have, just didn't have a name for it. Software as a Service the 'wetlands' spin on the 'swamp' of ASP. I like the idea of calling it SaaS. It blends nicely into the idea of a SOA enterprise architecture. If the EA is done right you should be able to add and remove your own SOA components and SaaS providers. Where things get interesting in the SaaS space to me is the question of data ownership, data security and data transportability.

If I'm a provider, ownership is a simple ToS in the contract. Security makes or breaks me. Transportability, the ability to move data from my company to that of my competitor or bring it in house, is a double edged sword, with the sharper edge pointed towards me. It cuts me in that it allows my clients to easily jump to a provider with a lower TCO. It gives them leverage to threaten to leave. It cuts my compeitition and brings revenue when I use it to take customers away from my competition (even when the competition is the customer's in house staff) and it has a potential for revenue by providing professional services engagements to do the migrations of data between systems. It's the classic line for Zoro about a sword. It's like a bird, hold it to tight and it dies. Hold it too loose and it flies away. It also means you need to compete on innovation. You have to be faster, cheaper or better to win business. With new startups coming around every day, it means you have to keep a full stable of developers and are always preparing for 'the next big release'. It's a fun environment to work in, but it also has a burn out rate.

If I'm the client, data ownership needs to be crystal clear up front. I know where were some CRM type SaaS providers where the data belonged to the provider, not the client. Leaving them meant they took ownership of your data. You could take a copy of I'm sure, but they had a copy too, which they could do lord knows what with. Security needs to be proven. Independant audit reports and certifications are crucial. I need to know an insider in the company isn't going to sell my data, what ever it may be, to my competitors or the press. The data portability is a pretty big issue. I need to be able to easily move to another provider if better oportunities present themselves, the vendor goes out of business or is acquired. I need to be able to move it quickly to limit disruptions to my end users and to provide continuity.

I think as high bandwidth connectivity becomes cheaper and faster the SaaS market will continue to grow and be very vibrant. What I primarily see is niche or small segment SaaS providers so far. Recruiting/HR, CRM, desktop apps and the like doing well. If continues to prove itself, eventually larger segments of back office software services will be provided until the whole data-center is external. Another interesting mash-up will be when SaaS vendors start melding with on-sight managed service and outsource providers. They could then begin to provide ala carte plans, leaving customers to pick in choose what services they want to keep in house and what they want to just pay someone else to deal with.