What do you mean by Software as service? List its advantages.

Software as a Service

Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software", is a which software and associated data are centrally hosted on the cloud. SaaS is typically accessed software delivery model in by users using a thin client via a web browser.

In this model, the software is not hosted on the customers' individual computers. Under the a vendor is responsible for the creation, updating, and maintenance of software. Customers buy a subscription to access it, which includes a separate license, or seat, for each person that will use the software.

SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems(MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), content management (CM) and service desk management. The emergence of SaaS as an effective software-delivery mechanism creates an opportunity for IT departments to change their focus from deploying and supporting applications to managing the services that those applications provide.

Unlike traditional software which is conventionally sold as a perpetual license with an up-front cost (and

an optional ongoing support fee), SaaS providers generally price applications using a subscription fee,

most commonly a monthly fee or an annual fee. Consequently, the initial setup cost for SaaS is typically

lower than the equivalent enterprise software. SaaS vendors typically price their applications based on

some usage parameters, such as the number of users ("seats") using the application. However, because

in a SaaS environment customers' data reside with the SaaS vendor, opportunities also exist to charge

per transaction, event, or other unit of value.

Benefits of SaaS (Hope now you can explain all):

•   Save money by not having to purchase servers or other software to support use.
  
•   Focus Budgets on competitive advantage rather than infrastructure.
  
•   Monthly obligation rather than up front capital cost.
  
•   Reduced need to predict scale of demand and infrastructure investment up front as available
  capacity matches demand.
  
•   Multi-Tenant efficiency
  
•   Flexibility and scalability
  
•   Security 
  

Characteristics of SaaS

•   Simple and quick system implementation: As Saas sits on top of PaaS and IaaS, deploying any enterprise level software becomes easy and quick as SaaS inherits all the features of underlying infrastructure. Also since SaaS is scalable, any user request can be addressed with required elasticity.
  
•   Transparent and low pricing: With common infrastructure, cloud vendor can leverage their infrastructure with lower cost and transparency. End result of this directly impacts customer cost of software implementation as they gets it cheaper with enhanced security and high availability.
  
•   Multitenant Architecture: A multitenant architecture, in which all users and applications share a single, common infrastructure and code base that is centrally maintained. Because SaaS vendor clients are all on the same infrastructure and code base, vendors can innovate more quickly and save the valuable development time previously spent on maintaining numerous versions of outdated code.
  
•   Easy software maintenance and Customization: The ability for each user to easily customize applications to fit their business processes without affecting the common infrastructure. Because of the way SaaS is architected, these customizations are unique to each company or user and are always preserved through upgrades. That means SaaS providers can make upgrades more often, with less customer risk and much lower adoption cost.
  
•   Better Access: Improved access to data from any networked device while making it easier to manage privileges, monitor data use, and ensure everyone sees the same information at the same time.