MediaTech Law

SaaS, short for “Software as a Service”, is a software delivery model that grants users access to a program while the software itself and its accompanying data are stored off-site, on a vendor’s (or another third party’s) servers.  A user accesses the program via the internet, and the access is provided as a service.  Hence … “Software as a Service”.

In terms of user interface functionality, a SaaS service – typically accessed via a subscription model – is identical to a traditional software model in which a user purchases (or more typically, licenses) a physical copy of the software for installation on and access via the user’s own computer.  And in enterprise structures, the software is installed on an organization’s servers and accessed via dedicated “client” end machines, under one of many client-server setups.  In that sense, SaaS is much like the traditional client-server enterprise model where servers in both cases will likely be offsite, the difference being that SaaS servers are owned and managed by the software owner.  The “cloud” really just refers to the invisibility of the legal and operational relationship of the servers to the end user, since even in traditional client-server structures servers might very likely be offsite and accessed only via internet.