The arrival of software-as-a-service (SaaS) has revolutionized the way that enterprises manage their IT infrastructure. Just as businesses replaced the water wheel or wind power with electricity from the national power grid, software and IT systems have evolved beyond simple fat fingers, floppy disks and CDs.

SaaS is a new economy that is rapidly marginalizing the value of traditional software. Legacy software applications are associated with significant upfront costs, while upgrade and maintenance cycles will multiply those initial acquisition costs by numerous factors. While traditional software can be customized to suit the needs of individual enterprises, the disadvantages of doing so are all too apparent, with enterprises suffering an inability to preserve changes through an upgrade, and all too often, vendor lock-in.

Simple upgrades of legacy software can be extremely costly and resource-intensive tasks, which means that many organizations are forced to refrain from customizing their applications, instead just adhering to the vendor’s predetermined configurations. But this kind of shrink-wrapped software is fast-becoming inadequate to support the needs of modern enterprises today.

These challenges have become a serious roadblock in today’s economic environment, forcing a growing number of enterprises to look at cloud infrastructure as a solution. Nevertheless, IT managers still have to grapple with the challenges presented by scaling their cloud infrastructure to meet their demands effectively. Access this infographic to learn how SaaS differs from other software delivery models, the history of SaaS, SaaS growth drivers, and the future of cloud computing.

Note: Click to enlarge