What is Solution as a Service and Its Benefits ?

solution as a service

What is solution as a service ? Is it anything like saas? Is it as practical in its purpose? Solution as a service actually has three base definitions depending on whom you ask. All three are equally valid, and in all three cases, similar benefits and new efficiency can be gained from their use.

So, what is solution as a service? First, I’ll address the software question. In one definition it is in fact related to software as a service, because it is basically software as a service … as a service.

In this definition, it is a company that specializes in pay-per-model and subscription hosting of specialized or custom SaaS designs needed for a specific and often short term purpose. SaaS that doesn’t exist, or is too short-term to justify purchasing on a large enterprise scale.

The benefits of this definition are pretty obvious. It saves money and provides quick and dirty solutions in software for companies that have evolving and temporary tasks that need to be computed. It’s also a good testing ground for ideas in SaaS in a controlled and not overly-invested form.

The second definition of solution is that of web-served solutions for specific tasks performed. These are demonstrated by nothing better than freelance writing, art or graphics sites. In these systems, projects are requested and freelancers either bid or just submit the project, and are paid when it is accepted.

This is another fast and dirty channel to get something done without hiring a dedicated team, or to alleviate a dedicated team from tedium, and put them to better use.

This definition is the most widely applicable, and the benefits are again rather apparent. With this model, you can save the time looking for a writer, coder or artist to commission. You just put your money into the service and state your request. When one of the submissions is what you want, you approve it. They are paid and you own the material you wanted. No muss no fuss.

The final definition is enterprise solutions for things such as cloud computing and hosting systems. These are very important and aren’t a new concept to most people. Many things are by this definition solution services. Email, forums, instant messengers and self-service models for interacting with online businesses are also solution services in this regard.

The advantages here are … well. You can’t have sites without hosting, and hosting on one’s own servers is prohibitively expensive, and if done widely, would get messy like the internet of the ancient days. Cloud computing is invaluable to making super computing for logistics, forecasts, science and other complex things possible without similarly prohibitively expensive super computers in every office.

Also, communications would be messy without centrality to email protocols, forums and the like as well, come to think of it. So, yeah, by this definition, it’s pretty obvious the benefits. This is why the second is the most talked about and most important one.

But yeah, that’s solution as a service, by three standard definitions, and why they are beneficial. Hopefully it’s a bit less mystifying now.
