You Know SaaS, But What Is PaaS?

Cloud computing has created a number of avenues to expand its services, branching out into other key segments beyond SaaS. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has garnered attention for a while now following the advent of could technology, but platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is also catching on among some enterprises.

PaaS is nothing but a cloud computing module delivering apps through the internet. In short, a PaaS cloud service provider offers software and hardware tools to its users, be it businesses or individuals, as a service.

The advantage of having PaaS is that the user is not bound to install any hardware or software to run or develop any fresh apps. There is little need to have a dedicated IT team, especially for small- or mid-sized businesses.

One innovative sub-sector with PaaS is video communications PaaS, which create real-time video communications. According to the IDC, the video PaaS market is estimated to generate revenue of $60 million in 2016. However, by the end of the current decade, the segment is expected to witness a 130 percent compound annual growth pace reaching $1.7 billion.

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IDC's group vice president and consulting partner of worldwide telecommunications, Mark Winther, said, "The video PaaS market currently consists of a patchwork of individual use cases and specialized applications. But the video PaaS opportunity is not limited to a single solution for a specific industry need. By making it dead easy to embed video into any application, developers can build anything they want and enhance existing B2B or B2C interactions via a uniform visual platform."

Some of the listed companies offering PaaS are given below. These companies are likely to gain from the available opportunities. However, they have to win over clients amid tough competition.

• Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN's Amazon Web Services.
• Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL's Google App Engine.
• International Business Machine Corp. IBM's Bluemix.
• Microsoft Corporation MSFT's Microsoft Azure.
• Oracle Corporation ORCL's Oracle Cloud.
• Red Hat Inc RHT's Open Shift.
• salesforce.com, inc. CRM's salesforce platform.

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