Saas

SaaS

Noun (acronym) · /sæs/ · Software as a Service — cloud-delivered software on subscription

Definition

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It is a cloud computing model in which software is hosted by a provider and delivered to users over the internet — typically through a web browser — on a subscription basis. The user does not install the software locally, does not manage updates, and does not maintain the underlying infrastructure. The provider handles all of that. Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, Zoom, Shopify, and Notion are all SaaS products. SaaS is pronounced to rhyme with class or pass, not spelled out as individual letters.

Origin

The term emerged in the early 2000s as cloud infrastructure became commercially viable. John Garretson of Gartner is often credited with popularising the term in industry analysis around 2001. The model itself — centralised software served to remote users — dates back to the mainframe era of the 1960s, when time-sharing systems allowed multiple organisations to rent computing time on a single machine. The modern SaaS wave was accelerated by Salesforce, which launched its CRM entirely as a cloud subscription in 1999, years before the term SaaS was widely used.