Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing, + Website

CHAPTER 21

Platform and Software Services

We have focused heavily on infrastructure as a service (IaaS). However, there are two other major layers in the cloud: platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS), and dozens of other as-a-service offers which are usually considered variations or components of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS: data as a service, compute as a service, integration as a service, business process as a service, etc. SaaS has changed the way organizations of all sizes acquire and utilize increasingly powerful business applications to perform their day-to-day functions and achieve their corporate objectives, according to Jeffrey M. Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies and founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace.1 He argued that any organization that fails to capitalize on today’s rapidly expanding array of SaaS solutions will be unable to keep pace with the escalating needs of its employees, customers, and business partners and therefore will be at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace.

Generally speaking, IaaS offers are targeted at operations personnel: those whose job it is to run things; PaaS offers are targeted at developers: those who build things; and SaaS is targeted at end users: those who use things. One may think of the first as a U-Stor-It or warehouse space: Raw capacity can be rented. The second is Home Depot, with components of every shape and size ready for purchase, assembly, and customization—say, screws, knobs, and pine ...