Cloud computing is set to be one of the most significant technology trends in coming years. It refers to computing resources that are provided virtually or over the internet. The concept most commonly refers to software as a service (SaaS) where applications are hosted by third party service providers and accessed by end user via a browser over the internet.  Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud". They simply use the software application with little or no fuss around how it is managed.

Examples of SaaS vendors include SugarCRM, Salesforce.com and Google Apps which provide common business applications online, where the software and data are stored on the servers. It is likely that the most commonly used consumer applications, such as word processors and spreadsheets will start to migrate into a SaaS model. This will be driven both by the ubiquity of access requirements to data as well as cost.  So far Google is the leader in this area.

Whilst SugarCRM has the flexibility of running under a SaaS model and via an on site deployment, there are obvious advantages of the SaaS model. These advantages include:

• Lower cost. In many cases the costs of on site deployment will be hidden and higher than you expect if all internal time and resources have been correctly accounted for
• Better uptime. Managing an application hosted on a server that must be up and running for your organisation 24/7, is not a trival task. There will be a wide variety of maintnance and outage issues to contend with. Often this is best left to the professionals.
• Less hassle. Under the SaaS model you can set and forget. Your third party provider will take responsibility for all aspects of the applications to ensure is is working correctly. The SaaS model can be extended to provide help desk application support for its user base.