Resumen
One of the more hyped commercial opportunities these days appears to be software as a service or SaaS. In this form of computing, a customer runs software remotely, via the Internet, using the service provider's programs and computer infrastructure. One of the first and most successful firms in the SaaS space is Salesforce.com, which was launched in 1999. Many people think that the future of software lies in SaaS and cloud computing. They may well be right in the medium term, but history shows that one cannot be sure that the trend will last indefinitely. Cloud computing has many parallels with the 20-year reign of timesharing systems. Timesharing thrived just as long as its cost and convenience was competitive with a mainframe computer installation. The arrival of the PC changed everything. Today, cloud computing offers tremendous advantages over the in-house alternative of maintaining a cluster of servers, application programs, and database software.