So what exactly is the difference, if any, between these buzzonyms? ASP - Application Service Provider
SaaS - Software-as-a-Service
On-demand - On-demand Software
"A service or feature which addresses the user's need for instant gratification and immediacy of use...
On-demand software is typically delivered by an
application service provider. This type of service offering is also frequently referred to as
Software as a Service"
So in a general sense, Wikipedians have deemed these to all have the same definition (ASP=on-demain=Saas). This leads us to consider the evolution and timeline of these terms. From experience I can confidently note that ASP - application service provider I first started hearing circa 1998. Then next was SaaS, followed shortly thereafter by On-demand software.
The timeline:
ASP ----> SaaS ----> On-demand
Further research yielded a few key differences in each term:
ASP - a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network
SaaS - software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native software application and hosts and operates the application for use by its customers over the Internet.
On-demand Software - software that is typically delivered by an application service provider
ASP vs. SaaS
It been suggested that the reason for the shift of the term "Application Service Provider" to "Software-as-a-Service", occured because the ASP term was too limited in scope, and implied that a provider was nothing more than a business that put a client-server app on some remote server for customers to access.
On the other hand "Software-as-a-Service", suggests a complete businsess model with software delivery, services and infrastructure to suppport multiple tenants (multi-tenant).
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