This is a good question... https://all-about-saas.slack.com/archives/C023CVBS736/p1673247263395759

I disagree with that. I made a comment on the original message

Can you give the paper’s thesis? Your question is to broad for me to give an answer.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. So what customers, developers, sales people, and outsiders all perceive as important aspects of quality are different.

Twitter is a social network to its users, but Twitter provides an Ads platform SaaS to its advertisers. Which is why I wanted to know the intent and context of the question. The answer is dependent on those.

It doesn’t need to be in the cloud to be a SaaS, right?

Good points… the context matters. I agree that ad platform is B2B, but I am not sure if it is SaaS!

Right, it needs to run on « not the customer’s computer »

Hahaha 🤣 I like the “metaphorical cloud”. But yeah, I interpreted “runs on the cloud” from the customer POV. The SaaS vendor can run it wherever they want, it doesn’t have to be a big-3 vendor.

SaaS being B2B makes sense to me as well

Something I’m still a bit on the fence about is all the creator economy stuff - video and photo editor, social media planners, etc. My intuition says that they are SaaS, but they sell to individual creators (many are teens posting stuff for friends on instagram) and not something I think of as “business”.

I guess in my mind a SaaS is a service you pay for (as opposed to a service you get « for free » in exchange for your attention / eye balls). Doesn’t matter if you pay as a business or as an individual.

I agree with your def above around it's software that runs on a computer that's not the user's. I think B2B vs B2C and paid vs "free" is irrelevant.

We need a “sandwich alignment chart”, but for SaaS.

TIL 😆

In the broadest sense, SaaS is a service or app that runs on someone else’s computer. Twitter whether its B2B or for consumers, is still SaaS. Its providing a service that others are consuming. Its supporting that service via ad-supported dollars. Think of it this way, if it starts charging consumers, would it then make it SaaS. It already is. Whether customers pay for it or not makes no difference.

This is a great thread. Let me add a couple of elements.

Office365 is SaaS, but the office thick client is just S(oftware), not SaaS… how is it a service if it’s installed on your own computer?

@User Great thread. Let’s start a bit broadly. User here is defined as the direct user of the service. SaaS provider is the entity (generally another company) is defined as the entity that is responsible for creating and updating/upgrading the service. ITOps is defined as the entity that may do some basic configuration, billing and contractual negotiations with the SaaS provider. ITOps and User roles can be owned by the same person. The following conditions then make a service a SaaS service. Business Model: However one key point to remember is how the service is priced and accounted for. It should be priced as a subscription and not a perpetual license. The SaaS product accounting should also be similarly 100% ratable unlike traditional software that has a 80% license component (recognized upfront) and 20% support (ratable). 1. Any software service that is not “hosted, managed, updated or upgraded” by the user, but by the SaaS Provider 2. The service is regularly updated (with bug fixes and security patches) with little to no downtime by the SaaS Provider 3. The service is regularly upgraded (with new features and capabilities) with little to no downtime by the SaaS Provider 4. The service scale, availability, reliability, performance SLAs are published are managed by the SaaS Provider. 5. ITOps is responsible for figuring out the needs of the Users and then negotiating with the SaaS provider for billing, support SLAs, security posture and certifications etc. 6. SaaS providers may also provide a “client” app (mobile or otherwise) to interact with the Server side SaaS. The client app is also automatically updated/upgraded by the SaaS provider. 7. *Exclusions:*Every direct to consumer app could “technically” be considered a SaaS service, but historically in not. Most banker types consider these separate categories -e.g. e-commerce (wayfair.com), or social (twitter.com). The B2B part of these service maybe considered SaaS. For instance the adservice for twitter.com —but historically these are bundled under ecommerce/ad segments.

Is Autodesk Fusion360 a SaaS then? Its locally installed, requires a subscription, and the core features are run in on remote computers Autodesk controls. If I’m on my own computer in the same room as you, typing commands based on what you say or do, am I a SaaS? I’m having a ton of fun with this sandwich graph idea 😆

I meant office 365 of course. Who installs word anymore.

I don't know much about Autodesk Fusion -but if the business model (updated my comment above) is SaaS, and it follows all the 6 points above, then I would consider it SaaS

what a great conversation, love the question, and a really well thought out definition @Anoop Dawar. My thought is the minimum bar for SaaS this is ( aligned with Anoop's rules I think): Business - Subscription Pricing Tech - Application Plane managed by provider Has an independent Control Plane that enables the management of the application plane By that definition, B2C (and B2B2C) could be considered SaaS. In my opinion that's fine, they just aren't multi-tenant SaaS, which would requiring tenant isolation at the Application Plane. So many other possible characteristics of SaaS are possible though...

Thank you so much, everyone. I am travelling for a week. But in the next weekend, I'll connect the dots from all your replies and hope we'll have a much more engaging discussion!

I asked ChatGPT, "what is SaaS?" and got this 😅

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It refers to a software delivery model in which a software application is hosted by a third-party provider and made available to customers over the internet. Instead of purchasing and installing software on their own computers or servers, customers can access the software through a web browser and pay for it on a subscription basis. SaaS providers typically handle maintenance, upgrades, and security for the software, which allows customers to focus on using the software to meet their business needs. SaaS is one of the three main categories of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

Thank you everyone for the taking you time out and for contributing to the thread @Gwen Shapira @Patrick Auld @Felix GV @Girish @Janaka @Bill Tarr @Lalit Pagaria @Anoop Dawar thank you for detailing it. I believe you have covered most of the points. Here's my dummy version in layman's terms, for non-developers: • SaaS stands for Software as a Service • Software is delivered and accessed over the internet • Software is typically offered on a subscription basis • Software is hosted, managed, updated, and upgraded by the SaaS provider • Service is regularly updated with bug fixes and security patches • Service is regularly upgraded with new features and capabilities • Service scale, availability, reliability, and performance SLAs are published and managed by the SaaS provider • ITOps is responsible for figuring out the needs of the users and then negotiating with the SaaS provider for billing, support SLAs, security posture, and certifications • SaaS providers may also provide a client app to interact with the server-side SaaS • The client app is also automatically updated and upgraded by the SaaS provider • Examples of SaaS include Office365 and Adobe Photoshop.