August 30, 2008   Sign In |  About ebizQ |  Contact Us |  Join ebizQ Gold Club
Krissi Danielsson
SaaS Week
SaaS Week discusses market trends and roundups of Software as a Service (SaaS) industry news, along with social networking, collaboration, and other neat enterprise Web 2.0 technologies. SaaS Week also offers Q&As with interesting Web 2.0 and SaaS vendors.

« How Is SaaS Performing in the Market? | Main | Web and Enterprise 2.0 Technologies Dominate Gartner Top 10 List »

May 27, 2008
Confusing SaaS with Web 2.0

I remember a survey a few months back that showed the not too surprising finding that many companies didn't know the difference between SaaS, Web 2.0, and SOA -- and one survey that found companies were not interested in Web 2.0 but definitely wanted to jump on the collaboration bandwagon. Acronyms and buzz words are a kind of a pet peeve of mine, since I think they too often make it harder rather than easier to communicate -- and then everyone gets caught up in using the terminology rather than the actual concepts behind the words.

So I was interested to see an article in the San Jose Mercury News that proclaimed SaaS to be "web 2.0 for the business class." Umm, say what? Most of the article was decent enough for explaining SaaS to general readers, but SaaS and Web 2.0 are not synonyms. Wikipedia, for example, has the definition I've understood to be the meaning of Web 2.0: "the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users." In other words, Web 2.0 is blogs, social networks, wikis, and collaboration technology.

SaaS, in contrast, is a delivery mode. It's not a trend, really, but "a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet." Web 2.0 tools can involve SaaS, but SaaS does not by default necessarily have anything to do with Web 2.0.

So I just sort of thought that calling SaaS a "web 2.0 for the business class" was a little bit strange. But then again, who's surprised? Apparently a recent survey found that 44% of businesses considered "enterprise 2.0" tools to be important but 75% of those businesses also had vague familiarity or no familiarity at all with what enterprise 2.0 actually was. So it seems no one knows what they're talking about anyway. It makes you definitely wonder if we might be better off without buzz words.

Posted by krissidanielsson in |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ebizq.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3452

Comments

Posted by: Udayan at May 29, 2008 04:43 AM | Permalink

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)

We ask that you type your code (displayed below) in the text box.This code is an image that cannot be read by a machine. It prevents automated programs from submitting comments.


Code:



Most Recent ebizQ Blog Entries
ADVERTISEMENT
RSS Subscription


Add SaaS Week to Newsburst from CNET News.com
Subscribe in Bloglines
Subscribe in NewsGator Online
Blog Roll
This Work
Accountability:The opinions expressed in this blog are solely representative of the blog's author, and not of ebizQ

Subscribe to our Newsletters
ebizQ Weekly Gold Club Update
Live Webinar Updates
Updates from ebizQ Partners
ebizQ SOA Update
ebizQ BPM Update
ebizQ Security Update
ebizQ BI Update
ebizQ Open Source Software Update
Virtual Show Newsletter
ebizQ Web 2.0 and the Enterprise
Your E-mail Address:
The Future of Application Servers in the Enterprise & IBM WebSphere Application Server V7
Date: Sep 10, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM ET
(16:00 GMT)

REGISTER TODAY!
How to Get a BPM Initiative off the Ground
Date: Sep 16, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM ET
(16:00 GMT)

REGISTER TODAY!
Archived Webinars | Upcoming Webinars

Marketing Solutions | Feedback | About ebizQ | Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy | Site Map

Live Chat