What Does Software as a Service Mean for Business Intelligence?
Software as a service, or SaaS, is a confusing term that means different things to different people. To the consumer, it may mean the ability to buy and download desktop software using the Internet, or to pay an annual fee to vendors like McAfee or Symantec for keeping desktop virus definitions up to date via the Internet. At the other extreme, for a business organization, it may mean purchasing Internet-based application services from a third-party vendor. Broadly speaking, SaaS can be broken down into three main types of service: • On-demand software purchasing where individual users or organizations try, buy and download personal, workgroup, or enterprise software across the Internet. For vendors, software-on-demand provides a cost-effective sales channel and software delivery mechanism. For users, it provides a fast and easy way to obtain software. • On-demand IT service-oriented architecture (SOA) where IT system and application processing is defined and developed as a set of serv
Software as a service, or SaaS, is a confusing term that means different things to different people. To the consumer, it may mean the ability to buy and download desktop software using the Internet, or to pay an annual fee to vendors like McAfee or Symantec for keeping desktop virus definitions up to date via the Internet. At the other extreme, for a business organization, it may mean purchasing Internet-based application services from a third-party vendor. Broadly speaking, SaaS can be broken down into three main types of service: • On-demand software purchasing where individual users or organizations try, buy and download personal, workgroup, or enterprise software across the Internet. For vendors, software-on-demand provides a cost-effective sales channel and software delivery mechanism. For users, it provides a fast and easy way to obtain software. • On-demand IT service-oriented architecture (SOA) where IT system and application processing is defined and developed as a set of serv
