20 Feb 2009

Businesses using SaaS 'save money'

Organisations can cut costs by implementing software-as-a-service (SaaS), according to a sector expert.

Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director of IT solutions firm THINKstrategies, believes the initiative can help small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to cut costs in multiple ways, including free trials which mitigate the price of wasting money on unused software.

"SMBs can also save money on real estate and utility costs by eliminating needless floor space and cooling systems which were once necessary to house the servers which supported their applications," he writes for SmallBusinessComputing.com.

Pay-as-you-go subscription methods also allow firms to pay for the service in increments, which limits wastage through long development cycles or slow user adoption, he adds.

SaaS solutions are comparable to traditional enterprise applications and offer the added advantage of using web-based architecture rather than on-premise software, Mr Kaplan concludes.

Last year SaaS-IT founder Anders Trolle-Schultz said the initiative is set to have a "major impact" on the business world in the next few years.