Don't need to own a car? Join the club.

Have you seen this streetcar advert on the tube recently?

It's a great analogy for Software as a Service (SaaS). For those of you that might not be familiar with SaaS - here's the Wikipedia definition:

Software as a service (SaaS) is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support.

Back to the streetcar analogy - with streetcar, I'm just using the car as a service. So all of the hassle and cost (insurance, road tax, maintenance, etc.) that is associated with owning and maintaining a car goes away. In the software world, this is all of the hassle and cost of owning and maintaining the actual software (hardware, IT resources, upgrades, downtime, etc.).

SaaS has lots of potential in the not-for-profit sector. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept - the good, the bad, and the ugly.