I work in Banking Technology. As we change how we build software systems there are multiple buzz words that are thrown around. One common one is SaaS .

SaaS – stands for software as a service. In the olden days software companies sold you their software on a disc and you paid for a one time use. In the last decade companies have changed the method to selling your their software product on a monthly basis ( as a service ) and another important differentiator – they host the application and sell you the ability to use it.

Official definition goes along the lines of SaaS is a software delivery and distribution model.

As a private user I  find it annoying that I now have a monthly forever fee to pay for the use of an application I used to be able to buy as a one time item.

In a corporate setting this SaaS has different kind of Implications :

Working in enterprise software the opportunity to use software as a service and pay only for what you use has tremendous benefits.  Also when you use a SaaS model organizations don’t need to worry about installing and maintaining the applications within their own internal servers. New updates/patches are also supposed to be pushed out seamlessly.

There are also downsides to SaaS . Your organization become dependent on external vendors. You lose some control and flexibility, you are tied to your Vendors for security breaches and service disruptions.

I also see organizations designing their internal applications delivery model to be SaaS as well.