THE SHIFT TO SAAS

  The Shift to Cloud-Based and Subscription Services in the Modern World and its Effect on Consumers Evolution of Software Distribution In the closing years of the twentieth century most software was a tangible product: compact discs were shipped to offices, installation keys unlocked functionality, and a single hefty purchase entitled the buyer to use that program indefinitely. That model suited a world where personal computers were isolated and internet speeds were slow, but it imposed high up-front costs and left businesses responsible for every patch, upgrade, and hardware refresh. The arrival of high-bandwidth networking, commodity virtualization, and hyperscale data centers made it possible to decouple software from physical media, and by the early 2000s a new paradigm, Software as a Service, began to dominate. Instead of owning code, customers acquired a license to access it over the web, paying small recurring fees and letting the vendor handle maintenance. Advocates celeb...