The Growth of SaaS – How It Got Widespread?

Everything that gets widespread and popular always has a history of strange developments! Same is the story of SaaS market growth. Its foundation was laid in the 1960s and since then it has covered the journey of failures, innovations, and successes—until reaching this day which is prevalent in every industry owing to its remarkable SaaS growth strategy.

The SaaS market growth has been so enormous that most companies and businesses are employing SaaS technology in one form or the other. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that Facebook and Snapchat are actually SaaS products—in accordance with the definition of SaaS.

Before we delve into the history, evolution and SaaS market growth, I will discuss what is SaaS technology?

What is SaaS?

It is a service through which applications can be used via the internet instead of downloading the application on your system. It offers wide-ranging benefits of accessibility, compatibility, and management. Furthermore, its upfront cost is extremely low which also makes it accessible for smaller businesses to utilize its advantages.

On the flip side, it needs the internet to function but the explosion of powerful broadband services are now resolving this issue as well.

The Foundation Stone

Going back to the 1960s, the computers were expensive and large in size. This inconvenience resulted in the birth of “Service as a Software.” Back then this technology was called “time sharing system.”

The working of the time sharing system was unique. Keyboards and monitors were all connected to the mainframe. The mainframe used to have all the important applications that were shared by all the employees. It was a two-way process; the terminal keyboard would send requests to the mainframe, which in return would send the output to the monitor.

This system was the internet of that time. Since this process was cost-effective, most of the businesses, educational institutes, and government organizations utilized it. This system was used throughout the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time, the prices of computers were declining rapidly.

The Declining Cost of Computers

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the cost of computers shrunk. After a while, companies could afford to give every employee desk computers instead of relying on time sharing computers—which everyone shared. But guess what? SaaS did a great job in adapting to new technology; it transformed into LANs (Large Area Networks).

Through this, the employees could access central computers to use applications. The intricacy and complexity in the management of LAN systems gave rise to hiring network managers. The increase of responsibilities led organizations to make dedicated IT departments.

How Bloatware Increased SaaS Market Growth

As employees were working on their personal computers, whenever they installed software, extra software would be automatically installed—programs that they didn’t need but comes free (antivirus with trials, for instance). These were called bloatware. In the 1990s, it caused the major problem of space.

System space was very expensive at that time—15MB space cost $2400 in the US. This marked the return of SaaS market growth where a central hub was maintained to access applications and data.

SaaS Market Growth—No Sign of Slowing Down

Since then SaaS growth strategy has lived up to its promise by providing low cost, easy deployment, and timely upgrades in their service. It has taken advantage of all the recent features like cloud-based scalability. Today it has grown beyond comprehension due to its resilience and still, continues to grow.

If you are also looking to adopt SaaS services for your business, you can always reach out to the experts at vteams.