Paul Bleicher
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In 10 years, our view of software may be very different than what it is today. Much of the software we use now, whether desktop
tools or enterprise applications, will probably not reside on our desktop computers. It will no longer be delivered in shrink-wrapped
boxes or on CD-ROMs. Rather, the functions that software provides today will be delivered tomorrow as a service over the Internet
that will take away the expense and frustration of configuring, installing, maintaining, and decommissioning. The user will
log on to the software through a Web browser and use it as needed with "zero footprint" on the desktop. This concept is known
in business circles as SaaS (Software as a Service). The change is well underway with some consumer and enterprise applications,
but will soon be a major force in a wide variety of software deployments. An illustrative example will help to clarify, and
I will fall back on an old favorite: the spam filter.
Spam filtering as a service
For more than five years, spam email has been the scourge of every corporation. Many companies have repeatedly installed spam
programs to deal with the ever increasing onslaught. These software packages were identified, installed, maintained, and replaced
by the corporate IT department at considerable cost, with varying degrees of success. With many conflicting business priorities,
the spam filter life cycle isn't always on the top of the list in IT departments. Recently, the emergence of a SaaS application,
Postini (http:// http://www.postini.com/), has brought a new model to spam filtering. Postini provides the service of spam filtering to thousands of companies through
a simple method.
Before Postini, email intended for "Company A" would be routed to a corporate mail server, where it would pass through whatever
spam-filtering software was being used and then be released to individual users. After Postini services are deployed, all
of Company A's email is first routed to Postini, where it is processed through a variety of state-of-the-art spam-filtering
software—both standard and proprietary—that is carefully tuned for optimal performance and run on single purpose servers.
Once filtered for spam, the email is forwarded to the company email server, where it can be routed, unimpeded, to the individual
employee. The company's IT department can configure the software through a Web browser interface, and each employee can fine tune the
filtering rules. Nobody in the company, however, ever has to worry about supporting the infrastructure needed to run a spam
filter—from the redundant power supply and backups, to the server and software. For a very reasonable monthly cost per user,
the company can get best-of-breed spam filtering with none of the hassles.
Varieties of SaaS
Postini is a very successful example of a Saas company, but it is far from unique. In fact, one version of SaaS has been around
for seven or eight years under the descriptive name: Application Service Providers (ASPs). Many of the older ASPs were offering
conventional client-server software that were made available through the use of Citrix or "bolted on" Web front ends. More
recently, SaaS software is predominately modern software, designed to be specifically used through a browser.
SaaS is a broad term that encompasses many types of software and service models. At one end of the spectrum are SaaS vendors
that will host any standard, off-the-shelf software for a customer. This type of SaaS typically involves the outsourcing of
hosting and support functions for software that has been licensed by the customer. In contrast, "Web-native" applications
are typically built by software vendors specifically for deployment on the Web. These companies will often host and support
the software themselves, acting as both software developers and service providers. A good example of this type of company
is http://Salesforce.com/, which offers sales force automation to small and large companies alike.
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