Last July, I offered my views on the similarities and differences between Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing. This past week, I had an opportunity to elaborate on the relationship between these two worlds and terms, along with Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS), during a webcast hosted by Symplified entitled, “Beyond the Buzzwords”.

Then and now I believe cloud computing is an outgrowth of the success of the SaaS market and web-based, packaged applications. Cloud computing represents a rapidly growing array of web-based tools which enable users to build their own applications or utilities that can be deployed via the Internet (“cloud”) or ‘downloaded’ to an on-premise environment.

Much like the open source world, the cloud computing environment enables users to take advantage of a wide assortment of piece-parts from a variety of sources to create their own solutions for various project and production purposes. They both rely on incredibility economical development resources and generous community-minded contributors willing to share and swap ideas and outputs.

During last week’s webcast, the question was asked how Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS) relates to SaaS and cloud computing. In my view, PaaS is a vendor-centric set of tools and resources which permit users to build apps and utilities which not only take advantage of the vendor’s holistic portfolio of technological capabilities, ranging from development to delivery, but also leverage the company’s customer base and/or channels to market.

I dissected some of these ideas and leading platform players last month. I also will be moderating a panel session at Interop in Las Vegas on May 19 entitled “SaaS, Pass and More: A Taxonomy of On-Demand Applications”, that will include executives from Cisco Systems, LongJump and Salesforce.com.

These topics will also be discussed at other events I’m attending and participating in over the coming weeks.

You can also obtain useful insights about how SaaS vendors are leveraging platforms in SoftLetter’s new SaaS Benchmark Study. My colleagues at Triple-Tree also published a useful report on platforms last year.

Cisco Systems cloud computing On-Demand PaaS Platforms-as-a-Service SaaS Salesforce.com Software-as-a-Service Symplified