It seems the only think more popular than software as service or on-demand applications in the language, acronyms and lingo associated with them. The purpose of this post is to try and decipher some of the buzzword and acronyms floating around in the area of Software as a Service (SaaS) so the next time you are at a dinner party and the subject comes up, you can impress your colleges with your obvious mastery of the subject area – after all, he who knows the most buzzwords wins!

• Software as a Service (SaaS):
  Software as a Service is defined as a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops, hosts and operates a web application that is used by customers over the Internet. This is by far the most common, and in my opinion, the most accurate term used to describe software being delivered as a service.
• On-Demand Software:
  This is another term company used to refer to software as a service (SaaS). This term speaks to the benefit of SaaS (primarily the fact that SaaS application are available “on demand”). “On-demand applications” and “on-demand technology” are alternate versions of this term.
• Application Service Provider (ASP):
  This is the grand daddy of SaaS terms! The Wikipedia defines an ASP as “business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network.” So SaaS companies are essentially using an ASP model to deliver their own applications (originally ASP were focused on providing a host of third party application through their service). It is also note-worthy to point out that not all ASP applications were web-based. The term ASP evolved from the more common term ISP (Internet Service Provider) and become popular in the late 90’s. Just goes to show you that SaaS is not as new a concept as many of us think!

The term SaaS has given rise to many SaaS-related cousins. Krissi Danielsson did a great post title “Attack of the -aaS Acronyms, or a Quick Glossary of SaaS Cousins” on this growing trend. Some notable acronyms that actually related to SaaS include:

• Platform as a Service (PaaS):
  Term used by Salesforce.com to describe its new Force.com offering that enables businesses to create and run applications on-demand.
• Mashups as a Service (Maas):
  Bloggers around the Web are using this term to refer to the “convergence of SOA with Web 2.0.”

There are a number of acronyms that sometimes get used when talking about SaaS that are worth being aware of. Most of these directly or indirectly relate to SaaS. These include:

• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA):
  Key to SOA is the idea of build applications out of modular web-based software services (SOAP, XML-REST, WSDL, i.e.). The goal of SOA is build software that reuses modular “loosely coupled” web-services which each represent a chunk of functionality. SaaS application are NOT necessarily build on SOA, although some SaaS companies expose their API’s as services than CAN be leveraged by applications build on SOA. You will find that the technology community is very fond of using both words together as in: “SOA for SaaS” or “SOA meets SaaS”. (See Wikipedia)
• Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP):
  This term refers to a popular technology stack of open-source software used by a growing number of software developers to build and deliver applications. Not all SaaS are built on LAMP, but it is a popular and inexpensive platform for building and deploying SaaS applications. Other popular technology stack used to deploy SaaS applications include: Java/J2EE (used by SalesForce.com and LongJump for example) and Microsoft .NET.
• Software and Service (Software + Service, SaaS 2):
  Microsoft’s vision to migrate SaaS to the desktop. Although Microsoft is a proponent of SaaS, it’s roots and strengths obviously lie on the desktop. Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie describes this combination of desktop and SaaS with the following quote: “SaaS 1 meant the web; SaaS 2 has come to embrace the unique value of the client.”
• Situated Web Application Platforms (SWAP):
  A term that I like coined by blogger Pete Thomas used to refer to SaaS platforms such as LongJump. Although I have yet to find an actual definition of the term, I have started to see the term (or similar terms as as “Situated Applications”) being used and it sounds cool and very buzzward-ish!

I hope you find this list of SaaS related buzzwords useful and perhaps you can put them to good use at your next technology mixer or office party! Enjoy and I hope you get a SOA-enabled, SWAP-like, MaaS-infused, PaaS-capable, LAMP-powered, ASP-delivered on-demand SaaS platform for Christmas! There you have it - 100% buzzword compliant in 2008!