The Application Service Provider (ASP) model of the 1990s has given way to a more customer-driven Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
ASPs offered off-the-shelf client-server applications that were hosted from third-party data centers and accessed by customers over Internet connections. But a combination of factors eventually doomed that concept. Among them were poor performance and that the services were based more on what the provider wanted to offer than what the customer really needed.
More recently, the SaaS model has emerged, which promotes modular applications built from the ground up to work well over the Internet. Not only is performance greatly improved, individual components can be readily updated. This modularity also allows customers to pick what they want instead of pay for things they don't need.
SaaS provides organizations with turn-key solutions, like iTEMize, that can be implemented quickly, and without the infrastructure costs and ongoing administrative burdens of traditional applications.
