Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration

Notes from Software as a Service (SaaS) Roundtable.

There were no real examples of using SaaS except for some coming from the vendors. Most companies just wanted to learn what SaaS is and how it is different from more “traditional” Application Service Provider (ASP) model. Overall, there were more questions asked than answered. Here are topics that were discussed.

What is SaaS model. What makes it different from ASP model.

The only clear differentiator is so called “single image” attribute. ASP model provides highly customized solution with customer getting “dedicated image” of the business application tailored to the specific customer needs. In contrast, in SaaS model customers share the same image (single image) with very limited customization (pretty much customer logo and slightly customized look and feel).

Why should one go with SaaS model?

The main value proposition of SaaS model compared to ASP is time to market and cost sharing (so called multi-tenancy with several customers sharing the same infrastructure and application image). Most companies asked what level of customization they could expect and still stay within SaaS pricing.

Different types of SaaS model.

Among those discussed: data services (like datawarehouse service) and partial subscription (with only subset of functionality used by the customer). Gartner analysts admitted that there is a lot of unknown in this area and it is not even clear that more fine-grained classification of SaaS is warranted.

How to work with SaaS provider.

Companies are interested in how to do RFP for SaaS, what to focus on and what questions to ask compared to ASP vendor, what kind of Service Level Agreement (SLA) to expect, what about security and data privacy.