IUpdateable from Eric Nelson

He's right.

SaaS is a buzz word that's being used to generate interest and excitement in technological advances.  Technology has been struggling for years to match what business has been wanting to do for years, even decades.  From a technology and architectural perspective - look back at COM, MTS, Web Services, EAI, COM+, Corba, MQ, JavaBeans & ASP (Application Service Provision) - even architectural implementations like Enterprise Frameworks - these were all ways of reusing or encapsulating business processing/information and exposing them to others.  

Those consuming or using the service could be inside or outside the core infrastructure implementation (ie within the corporate network or outside).  You could quibble that it's easier/better now - but the above technolgies were about delivering

those features.

There are several key elements - the architecure and development community have, for an immense period of time, tried to understand the environment that they work within.  How they can best apply the design and development mataphores to achieve a goal or objective.  How they can best reuse implementations, knowledge, experience and effort from one project to the next.  

The business community have, in many ways, been trying to achive the same aim but from a different perspective.  How best they can maximise their knowledge, experience, market and brand to increase income & profit, drive down overheads and maximise their margins.  In an ideal world also ensuring the the customer maintains the perception of value for money and quality of service.

Looking broad brush strokes of Business models for an established business you won't notice any change.  Some of the details will - but no more or less than it would of anyway.  Marketing always changes and always tries to use the latest buzz words to attract attention.  The reasoning is simple - the business will grow through new customers and early adopters (ie: heat seekers) will always be attracted to buzz words.  The hard part isn't always getting the sell - it's maintaining customer perception so that they don't leave.  This is important - especially from a SaaS perspective - in a technological market where people can plug into services 'ad-hoc' - they can also rewire (to another provider).

Even at the architecture level there is no fundamental change - there is still, for a well designed environment, the standard 'logical' layers: presentation, business and storage.  Scalability, Availability, Reliability - all tennants that always have or should be considered.

But it's not all doom and gloom :)

There are real reasons that SaaS is exciting! Technological and conceptual advances have been made - architectural patterns have evolved.  Focus has started to shift by developers and architects away from "nuts and bolts" to "glue and gum".  

This is due to a number of factors - partly the new "cookie cutter" technological elements coming out of Microsoft (more on that in a second) - such as WCF, WWF, WPF, Ajax and (the poor cousin) WCS (Cardspace).  Cardspace is the poor cousin because it's probably one of the most important changes and advances - and one of the most under showcased technologies.

These elements are exciting not just for what they provide but for what they represent.  No longer is the delivery of .netfx about APIs that essentially wrap cumbersome OS APIs - it's about providing true building blocks.  Everything in .netfx3 is about providing composable pieces of a puzzle that needs a little "glue and gum".

In addition to the great things provided in .netfx - the architectural & design metaphores have finally caught up.  The deliveries from the P&P group & the Architecture Strategy group - are now bringing the same "cookie cutter" elements to the table.  Developing and providing simple, clean and reusable direction in a format that is easy to digest.  Not only that but in a form that integrates well with the development platform.

The availability of all these components in a single, yet extendable interface (Visual Studio) is a powerful and compelling strategy.

Do I think SaaS is simply IT marketing hype - NO.

Will it change the way software is delivered and monetized to create business solutions – YES

Have we seen similar events that change delivery and monetization – YES (see client/server below)

Will the term SaaS become less relevant over time – YES

Does this mean SaaS is a fad – NO

Reference client/server which was no more or less of a label than SaaS, but did have a profound effect on “software”.  If SaaS were replaced with Client/Server in the quote then would we agree with the central conclusion that Client/Server is a fad?  

I would strongly argue that for both SaaS and Client/Server whilst the comments about the evolving software landscape may be valid the conclusion that it is all a fad is not.

“Client/Server, at best should be viewed as a metaphor for the state of software delivery at a particular point in time (ie. now) ...  Client/Server is a fad; it is a metaphor that encapsulates the evolving software landscape of today. It is only a matter of time before the term Client/Server will fade away into obscurity and be replaced by the more familiar term: Software. Only this time round the term software will not mean the same as it does today."

I think we're all agreeing here on the whole. Perhaps fad was not the right word to use - buzz is more appropriate. The concept of SaaS is real for sure it is just the term itself that is temporary IMO.

However, to suggest C/S is a fad is perhaps an even larger gaf.

How about "SaaS as a descriptor ...".

SaaS is too tied to Web 2.0 and all that hype. To me it's all just software at the end of the day .. just that the characteristics are changing ...

See 6 characteristics of SaaS http://blogs.technet.com/matt_deacon/archive/2007/01/31/six-characteristics-of-saas.aspx

:)

ArchitectInsight:

Just to clarify one of your comments:

"..to suggest C/S is a fad is perhaps an even larger gaf"

I agree with you completely and the whole point of my comment was that nobody in their right mind would dismiss C/S as a fad, and therefore if replacing SaaS with C/S in the quote means that nobody agrees with the quote then logically it is nonsense in its original SaaS form.

The key sentence in my comment is:

“I would strongly argue that for both SaaS and Client/Server whilst the comments about the evolving software landscape may be valid the conclusion that it is all a fad is not.”

So I believe we are in violent agreement :-)