Shopify

What is SaaS: Leasing software instead of buying by Linda Bleijenberg

We've almost forgotten about it, but in the old days (well, about ten years ago), software was a complicated issue for most companies. Software was seen as a product at the time. These days we do things a bit differently. Nowadays we have SaaS: Software as a Service.

 
Software as a Service
SaaS: Software as a Service

Back in the days software meant that you had to buy costly programmes, and then kept throwing money at them to make it work well. You acquired licenses, and service contracts: one for each programme. The software had to be installed on individual computers, and if your company was a bit larger, you needed servers as well. You frequently had to run updates, and hire a systems manager. Or two. Implementing, customizing and securing the new programme could take weeks, and usually made your employees horribly cranky. If something crashed, you were in serious trouble.

Old-fashioned, isn't it? And such a hassle.

What is SaaS? Software as a Service.

This means you pay someone to make your life easier. You simply outsource all the hassle, and reserve your time and energy for things that really interest you. Your software is no longer installed on your own precious servers, but in the cloud. You pay a small monthly fee, adjusted to the functions that you want to use, and you don't have to worry about anything else anymore. You log in via the internet, and have access to your applications from everywhere. From your mobile, the train, your tablet or laptop, or a client's computer.

Forget 'implementing', no systems managers needed, updates and servers and security aren't your responsibility any longer. You exclusively buy the use of the service or app you need, without having to pay for the accompanying hard- and software and maintenance. Kind of like lease cars.

Exactly the way you're used to work with the many Google apps, in fact. Or Spotify. Or Adobe Creative Cloud, and an endless series of other online services. SaaS is everywhere. If your company hasn't made the switch yet, you're probably going to transition somewhere in the next few years.

If you are in eCommerce, we'd love to help you with that! Shopify, the eCommerce platform that we often work with, is SaaS as well: read more about the platform here.

Need help? We've got you covered.

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Linda Bleijenberg
Written by

Linda Bleijenberg

Code easily writes 100 lines of code every day, but a blog is a different story! So we leave that to Linda Bleijenberg, our copywriter. She lives around the corner in Delft and wants to be an IT wizard when she grows up. Until then, she interviews our experts and shares our most interesting insights about Shopify and E-Commerce on our blog.

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