VIDEO: Software as a Service (SaaS), Explained

if you spent any amount of time researching software for your business you might be wondering what is software as-a-service many different software companies advertise themselves as software as a service or sass vendors but what does that mean to understand software as a service we'll need to go back in time to the 1990s the internet was really starting to take off and some smart companies saw this as an opportunity to help ease a common pain point for many small and medium-sized businesses the rising cost of hosting and managing specialized business software these companies became the first application service providers or a SPS SPS took care of the expensive and time-consuming task of managing and hosting software for small and medium businesses who could then access our software over the internet fast-forward to the present and we have SAS which expands upon this business model SAS companies create business software and take care of the hosting and management work themselves this means everything is available over the Internet letting businesses access their applications from any device with an internet connection many businesses have been making the shift to a SAS model you've probably heard of some of them including Salesforce Google Drive and Shopify but apart from the cost savings why are so many vendors switching to a SAS model there are many benefits of software as-a-service let's go over a few of them one increased accessibility being able to access your business applications from virtually anywhere might be the biggest selling point of SAS since everything lives online you can log in and use your software from any device that has an internet connection whether that's your laptop phone or tablet in this case your ability to work from anywhere is really only limited by your internet speed to automatic updates with software as a service you no longer have to worry about updating the software yourself apart from no longer needing to pay to update your software this also means you don't have to wait for it to update with traditional on-premise software updates we're expensive time-consuming and often caused businesses to pause operations while the software is updating but SAS fenders update their applications automatically so you always use the most up-to-date software version available three reliability and security SAS applications also win points are being reliable and secure instead of relying on your own company servers to run your software SAS apps run in the cloud cloud computing is a topic for another discussion but it basically creates multiple fail-safes to keep your software running at maximum uptime in fact many SAS vendors most impressive up times of 99% or higher SAS applications are also secure the data centers that power SAS applications are almost always protected by strict physical and digital safeguards to keep bad actors out plus many SAS vendors hire entire teams of IT personnel to help protect against risks like data breaches and denial of service attacks number four cost savings we've already mentioned that SAS applications are less expensive to own but let's dig in deeper as to why since companies can access SAS applications entirely over the internet they don't need to purchase expensive infrastructure and hire a large staff of IT workers the ability to distribute the cost of hosting also means that companies don't have to pay expensive upfront licensing fees like they used to for on-premise software SAS software is typically sold as a subscription where customers pay per month or per user per month to use the application in many ways software as a service is a big improvement over on-premise software but some of its pros double as cons one accessibility the ability to use your software from anywhere over the Internet is great but if you're having internet problems you're going to lose access to your business software temporarily if you aren't located in an area with high-speed Internet you might have difficulty using your software also just because you can access your applications over the Internet doesn't always mean you should remote employees working in their favorite coffee shop on an unsecured Wi-Fi network could put your company's data at risk likewise employees working with business information from mobile apps on their personal devices might also pose security concerns to data owner since your company data is not stored on your own servers it's a good idea to make sure that any contract or terms of use you agree to acknowledge that you own your own company data even if it is hosted on third-party servers many SAS vendors let you maintain ownership of your data but always double check before signing the dotted line having your data hosted on third-party servers can also put you at higher risk of a data breach it's true that the SAS model reduces the risk of someone stealing company info by breaking into your office and accessing your servers but information stored in SAS applications is accessible over the internet if a blackhat manages to hack into a system they could gain access to highly sensitive information free functionality for the majority of businesses SAS applications provide excellent functionality but some larger businesses and enterprises may not find what they need in the SAS solution the functionality of SAS apps is improving but until it catches up to the complicated and diverse needs of big operations enterprises may choose to stick with on-premise solutions when it comes to choosing software for your business there are many options to choose from why not seek the guidance of experts visit our website at technologyadvice.com to browse hundreds of different b2b software vendors hear our honest opinions read reviews - real software users and learn more about business technology if you want to save time you can speak directly with an expert right now give us a call at eight seven seven eight two two nine five two six and we'll help 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This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.