SaaS Apps vs. Traditional Software

When it comes to traditionally bought or licensed software versus software as a service (SaaS), many businesses are reevaluating the way they handle their software needs, and are leaning towards SaaS apps. SaaS apps are often highly niched, and simple web applications that are purchased at a low cost. In comparison, the total cost of ownership of traditional software must account for the initial purchase price of the license, then also for updates, IT support, training, and development. Software that includes more applications bring more value to the software itself, but still require IT and upgrades. It’s now increasingly apparent that the price of software is a small portion of the total cost of ownership.

Advantages of SaaS

There are many advantages of utilizing SaaS apps over traditional software. Here are some top reasons:

• Save money. SaaS apps tend to be utility based which is awesome for lowering costs. You can pay as you go, and are only charged for what tier of service you use. There are no additional deployment, IT, hardware or implementation costs either.
• Save a lot of time. Deploying traditionally licensed software takes more time, and usually more training. SaaS by their very nature tend to be easier to get up and running on in much less time.
• Better infrastructure. SaaS apps also usually operate in the Cloud which means you can access your application and your data anywhere you access the internet.Things associated with the Cloud include reliability, scalability and flexibility which allows businesses to streamline services and not worry about infrastructure overhead or management of the required hardware for traditional software. IT is no longer a concern.
• Always using the latest version and take advantage of new innovations. With SaaS new features and fixes can be released to users immediately. There is no pain or cost of upgrading software licenses and no waiting for major releases.
• Security. Believe it or not this is often true for small to medium sized businesses. Your data is more secure with a 3rd party SasS vendor, than it is being managed in-house by a small IT resource. There also tends to be less incidences of downtime and reliability issues.

Here are some other articles on traditional software and SaaS:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/81590/The_True_Costs_of_Software

http://www.crmlandmark.com/saasTCO.htm

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Software_as_a_Service