What exactly is a SAAS company

Cloud computing

In addition to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), what counts Software as a service (SaaS) is one of the most popular forms of cloud computing. Customers can access offerings hosted by a service provider over the Internet. The most popular SaaS applications in the business sector are, for example, Google's G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. SaaS applications have already established themselves in many areas due to their easy access. These include, for example:

This is how SaaS is provided

As with other cloud services, organizations typically pay a monthly or yearly fee for SaaS applications. SaaS providers usually bill applications based on certain usage parameters, such as the number of people who use the applications or the number of transactions.

The users access the applications via a browser. The majority of SaaS offerings are based on a multitenant architecture in which a single version of an application is used for all customers of the service provider. Companies that use software as a service applications can change the configuration settings and adapt the software to their special requirements within certain parameters. However, the functions cannot be adapted to the extent that it is often possible with locally installed company software.

How companies can save money with SaaS

One advantage of SaaS is that companies don't have to install and run their applications on their own systems. This reduces costs for hardware purchases and maintenance as well as for software licenses and support. The setup costs for Software as a Service are also generally low.

In certain cases, using SaaS can also reduce long-term software costs, although this depends on the pricing model for the particular offering and the company's usage patterns. In fact, software as a service can in some cases cost more than traditional software licenses. IT organizations should therefore check this carefully.

Thanks to the cloud services, companies can act much more flexibly: They can subscribe to SaaS offers as required, instead of purchasing licenses and installing the software on internal computers. Thus, in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases, the savings can be substantial.

SaaS: More flexibility for corporate IT

Since the SaaS applications are provided over the Internet, users can usually access the software from any device or location. SaaS offers usually not only support Windows, but also macOS, iOS or Android and also run on multiple browsers such as Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

Another advantage is the easy scalability. As with other cloud services, software-as-a-service offerings allow users to make greater use of individual services or functions. This is particularly important for companies that are growing rapidly or that need larger capacities for seasonal reasons.

SaaS customers also benefit from the fact that service providers can update their software automatically, often on a weekly or monthly basis. So companies don't have to worry about getting new releases or patches. This can be of particular interest to organizations with limited IT staff.