True SaaS
Pure Software as a Service
Software as a Service (SaaS), or hosted applications are a radical step forward in the ability to deliver function to the user with a minimum of complexity and a very real reduction in expense. These applications are written to take full advantage of the web and as such have a very healthy advantage over traditional tiered applications in their construction and extensibility, customizability and usability. There is a significant difference between a web enabled legacy application that runs on a server at the customer site and a web native application that runs as a service. One is a mask that hides the inefficiencies of an application by adding a web front end. While there is benefit in delivery, all administrative burdens continue to reside with the customer.
Leave Maintenance and Upgrade Costs to Us
A question that every IT customer should ask is “Why do we need to manage an application when the vendor that wrote it should be able to support it more efficiently than we can?” The simple answer to these questions is that with the web as the platform, many of these requests can be rapidly satisfied. Service-now.com provides a suite of applications that is built on a flexible, agile platform that is meant to be heavily customized without fear of versioning or upgrades. Every client is on our latest version and using our patented upgrade process we make upgrades effortless for clients and a piece of cake for ServiceNow.
It is important to clarify that there is a difference between an On Demand application and one that resides at an Application Service Provider. ASP’s, to a degree, are challenged as they are simply a location where a number of customers host their legacy applications. ASP’s generally know little about the application itself or any of the modifications that the customer has made. Their job is simply to keep the lights on. Responsibility for monitoring, tuning, availability, bug tracking and fixes, as well as implementing major upgrades continue to reside with their customer. What the customer enjoys are the economies of scale on the infrastructure side, which is one of many advantages to the on demand model.
At ServiceNow, the team that wrote the application handles monitoring, tuning, availability and updates to the application. All management and infrastructure challenges are moved from the customer to the vendor, where they belong.
