SaaS (Software as a Service)

I am always interested in how great ideas come about. One of the most best ideas and movements in the software industry lately is Software as a Service (go here for a definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_Service). I am a CRM program administrator that uses SalesForce.com. I can log-in securely to our companies data from any computer in the world. There have been many occasions when I have been away from my computer, or my computer decided not to work and I could log onto the internet and do my work.

I thought I would list a view great SaaS vendors.
www.salesforce.com
www.sugarcrm.com
www.webex.com
www.atroad.com
www.google.com (docs & spreadsheets, calender, blogger, etc.)

There are a few drawbacks to SaaS. Companies will need to build infrastructures to keep up with demand. If the servers go down or something else happens that hinders a users experience, customers will go elsewhere. The great thing about the software industry today is that you can get the entire LAMP (linux, apache, MySQL & perl/php) stack for little or no coat. This allows companies to purchase commodity hardware and load a stack of hardware for a fairly inexpensive cost.

The more and more the internet moves towards Web 2.0, the more companies will start moving towards SaaS. If you are building a company, make sure to look into saving costs with vendors that provide Software as a Service.