“Open source software will be key to the adoption of software as a service (SaaS) over the next few years to keep costs down and make sharing of applications easier. By 2010, around 90 per cent of SaaS providers will be using open source within their technology ’stacks’ – operating systems, application servers and databases “ , according to analyst house Gartner.
What is “software as a service?”
SaaS is a software application delivery model where a service provider hosts ‘on-demand’ software that is accessible through a browser. Examples of SaaS vendors are Writely.com , which offers a wordprocessing application that can be likened to Microsoft Word. It is hosted by Google, so you can access it and continue working on your document virtually. Typically, only a single file version is available, so online collaboration is a lot easier.
SaaS is generally associated with business software. As opposed to proprietary business software that is installed on a personal computer, SaaS software is low cost and is less complex. This is different from Web 2.0 software , which is consumer-oriented and web-native . SaaS applications are generally priced on a per-user basis. Thus, the SaaS model is suitable for businesses that are not willing to invest a lot of money and effort into software deployment, but have substantial computing needs.
SaaS and Open Source
Gartner concludes that at least 30 per cent (30%) of each individual SaaS application provided by vendors until 2010 will be made up of open source . The analyst house predicts that users will increasingly turn to ‘application platform as a service’ providers to bring in open source to help share software applications.
Because the use of freely available open source applications cuts down costs, more SaaS vendors are predicted to incorporate it more fully into their product lines. Open source provides redundancy tools, which not only reduces time to market , it also reduces software development cost and effort involved in building and deploying a new solution as a SaaS solution. When this is the case, software acquisition costs should ideally, but not necessarily be reduced. Further, as more businesses adopt SaaS applications, the applications exchange will continue to grow.
The problem with SaaS
Since SaaS is hosted by an external entity, it was originally considered a potential security and operational risk. Of course, businesses would rather keep their information to themselves rather than entrust it to an external entity. However, SaaS providers argue that their applications are more secure than their proprietary software counterparts, partly because it uses open source components, which leads to a level of service that is believed to be superior in many cases to closed source applications.
The future of SaaS
Despite security concerns, the popularity of “software as a service” will continue to grow due to several important factors. The pervasiveness of the computer, the availability of quality open source applications , affordable hardware , low cost bandwidth and the emergence of enablement technology that allows other vendors to quickly build SaaS applications are some of the reasons why SaaS will continue to flourish in the coming years.
