if adobe manages to offer full photoshop capabilities as a hosted application on the web that carries a subscription-based fee, charge by storage, supported by some sort of advertisement program or other creative revenue generating business model, would you give up your computer-bound software and give it a try for the following good reasons:
low initial software acquisition cost. don't need to pay for the $649 full computer-bound software license from day one. easier to switch to another provider without worry about vendor lock-in.
low maintenance and support cost since the software is hosted and managed by the vendor. don't need to worry about software configuration, patch and upgrade etc. on-going support and operational cost is more predictable.
don't need to worry about data storage and management (i.e. backup/restore) since they are stored in the data center of your service provider.
software and data are more accessible wherever there is a web browser and internet connection. this greatly simplifies your computing environment.
this example describes the essence of software as a service (SaaS). SaaS is certainly not new in the corporate world. while whether it is just a new marketing term for application service provider (ASP) may be up for some debate, SaaS will continue to stay and to evolve - or until someone comes up a fancier or more eye-catching name.
