Simplify Life

Industry terminology is like a verbal business card for all the players in the industry. Terms define who we are and how clients and prospects recognise us collectively. They are important because they are a key marketing channel.

For example - Do you recognise these terms and know what they mean?

• SaaS
• On-Demand
• CaaS
• S+S
• SasS
• Live
• PaaS
• UIaaS

Here at Saasu.com we are amazed at the word games other players in our industry are using to try and confuse the market.

SaaS means Software-as-a-Service. It is our preferred term and the one the industry uses mainly. Lets stick to it!

Particularly at a time when SaaS is still growing so we have a collective responsibility and need as providers to you our clients and prospects to educate you and (at least we believe) to not confuse the issues.

At Saasu.com want to make things clear not complicated.

In the SaaS industry we currently have some very large players happily confusing the market with terms they are making up, we think it is still very simple - we provide Software as a Service, the term On-Demand also is good. Both are plain English, makes senses, doesn’t confuse and has been in use for a long time. Here is what is happening out there in more detail -

• Salesforce.com - great CRM people and products which we like and integrate with, are using the term ‘on-demand’. They also say ‘no-software’ and on a good day also say good ol’ SaaS.
• Microsoft.com - the industry giant (we use some of their products just like most companies) are using the very new Microsoft only term Software + Service (S+S) pretty consistently now but are muddying the waters with this and ‘live’ services and have even seen the need to refer to SaaS and even another new one CaaS (Channel as a Service) and S+S and Live all on one page in an attempt to explain it all. At least they are trying I suppose.
• Netsuite.com - the SaaS accounting company - they started a year or so before us here at saasu.com - back in the 1990s - and they now use the term Software As Service (SasS) which seems unduly confusing and incorrect English at least to us. We hope that one day when we are as big as they are we won’t use our size to confuse the market.
• Salesforce.com (again but in a different category) - these guys don’t just do CRM, they are also providers of shared infrastructure to technology developers and they CRM clients who want to build more. Their CEO recently announced two new terms PaaS and UIaaS which mean Platform as a Service and UI as a Service respectively. They are alternatives to buying server and development software from people like Microsoft. They are fairly technical terms but also fairly logical extension of the core SaaS idea. We think thought that these new terms will confuse the main consumer and business market in the short term.

Here at Saasu.com we are a SaaS utility, we make sophisticated technology as easy to use as any other utility such as water, electricity and more. We wish you luck and will do our best to help you keep up with the terminology pollution.

Recapping -

• SaaS - Software as a Service : The preferred industry term that is established, widely used, self explanatory and widely encompassing the industry.
• On-Demand: Also an acceptable and established industry term.
• CaaS - oh dear a new variant we didn’t need from Microsoft
• S+S - Software and Service: ditto
• SasS - Software as Service: ditto
• Live - Microsoft one demand product family, mainly consumer - probably ditto, excusable as a product line name.
• PaaS - Platform as a Service A new one from Salesforce.com that is a bit techo
• UIaaS - User Interface as a Service: ditto