Software as a service or traditional licensing?

So I had mentioned in my last post that I would discuss Software as a Service or SAAS. I was busy lately so I took a break from the blog. So what about this SAAS thing?

Software as a service is the fact of offering an application as a subscription rather than as a lifetime license. This has many advantages, but also several downsides. The perfect examples of SAAS are Adobe and Microsoft. As the most popular providers of enterprise and consumer software these two tech giants decided to offer their most popular software offerings such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

So, as a consumer am I better off to buy a software license outright or to “lease” the application? It honestly depends on your needs. If you need an application for a short to mid term timeframe, the cost of subscription may be more advantageous as opposed to the license itself. However if you intent to use the software in the long run, you are usually better off to buy the application outright.

A major advantage of SAAS is that you get access to the latest version all the time, whereas if you buy a specific software you get updates only until the developer is actively offering the version you bought. So if you tend to always upgrade to the most recent version, SAAS may be worth considering.

However, if you tend to work offline, SAAS is not a good solution as most SAAS subscriptions require a continuous online connection. So if you tend to work in a remote area or in an isolated environment this is not your best option.

And what about cost? In the short run, SAAS is less expensive than a license in the short to mid term. The perfect comparison for this is Microsoft Office;

If you compare MS Office Home and Student to Office 365, here is what you get;

Office Home and Student 2013 sells for 139.00 on the Microsoft Store.
A One year subscription to Office 365 Personal costs 69.00 from Microsoft.

Office 2013 includes Word, Excel, Power Point and One Note;
Office 365 adds Outlook, Access and Publisher with on top a 1TB shared space on OneDrive.

So which one to choose? If you want to save money in the long run and the apps offered by the Home and Student edition meet your needs, then by all means get the lifetime license. But be prepared that in a few years it will become obsolete as it will no longer be updated and patched.

If you want the latest apps then you can subscribe to the Office 365. As a bonus if you have multiple family members that use different apps, then you may want to consider Office 365 Home, which allows you to use apps on up to 5 devices.