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ContactWorking in the Cloud - Lawyers and SaaS
My latest technology column for the ABA Journal is out. It's called "Working in the Cloud" and it focuses on the area now known as Software as a Service (SaaS) or hosted services or cloud computing. In fact, it's my effort to make the concept of cloud computing accessible and understandable to the average lawyer. It's probably well-known than I've long been a fan of the SaaS approach, but this column is intended to provide a balanced discussion of the concept.
After sketching out some history, I cover the general benefits and concerns about the SaaS approach and give some suggested tips when considering this approach:
1. Ask “compared to what?”
2. Do your due diligence.
3. Know your SLAs.
4. Deal with confidentiality.
5. Plan for transition,
6. Start small.
The details about the tips are in the article, of course, which you should now check out here.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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Comments
Today I read your blog post on cloud computing and SaaS in August's ABA Journal. I thought it was very good and very accurate. However I saw one quote that I thought could be clarified a bit.
"In fact, the term SaaS was substituted for ASP because of the negative feelings caused by the ASP-bubble era."
Though SaaS is similar to ASP's, it certainly is not the same thing. ASP's were hosting legacy software that still contained all the inherent legacy software drawbacks, while SaaS is software completely built in the cloud.
One of the best definitions I have seen is found here in this service-now.com white paper:
- http://www.computerworld.com/pdfs/Service-Now-BriefhistoryofSaaS.pdf -
Posted by: Wes | September 18, 2009 02:44 PM