Published on Sep 23, 2019
Updated on Dec 13, 2019
We are now living in the age of hyper-convenience, and the market for convenience (as-a-service) is soaring. For the better half of the last ten years, we have swiftly passed into the ‘as-a-service’ economy. The globalization of labour, highly disruptive business models and rapid consumerization have made the transition nearly inevitable.
The heightened experience of ‘utility’ extends to both consumers and even businesses. From hailing a taxi or buying groceries to quick entertainment and daily productivity tools, everything is/can be made available as-a-service. So how did XaaS get to this point? — where it’s now the preferred operating model of choice for delivering any IT function as a service for consumption.
The ‘as-a-service’ concept is universally understood to be an analogue of cloud computing. It is predicted to be valued at nearly $344B by 2024, growing at 24% over the next five years.
The approach has been around since the ‘60s when SaaS quickly replaced the older ASP (Application System Provider) model. The real reason the ASP model failed? It wasn’t scalable. Gone are the days of buying licensed software products and lengthy on-site installation processes. In contrast, with SaaS, enterprises can buy and pay for what they use. By taking advantage of virtualization and cloud-based scalability — users access the same code base, while their data and customized interfaces are kept separate.