SaaS, ASPs and Managed Services

The talk about Microsoft entering the SaaS market (see posts from Steve and Irwin) has me thinking about a couple key points. First, theres a difference between software as a service and hosted applications. SaaS is based on web applications that are specifically designed to be delivered over the Internet as a service. Hosted applications are traditional client-server apps that are hosted off site. SaaS is a new model of software deployment and delivery that is changing the way technology gets consumed and managed, whereas hosted applications have been around for a while and seem to rise and fall with the economic and technological tides (anyone remember the great ASP movement at the turn of the century?).More important than either model for UC are managed services, which allow companies to deploy a mix of hosted, SaaS and on-net applications, integrate them all, and have someone else manage everything from implementation to performance. I think companies that go down the UC road in the next few years will be looking for more than consulting services from their vendorsmore than ever, theyll be interested in managed services, too.