  Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a viable option for some companies bearing
their business processes. There is a considerable adoption rate, with companies
already using more than two services for over two years. However, while some
companies have plans to put more business processes supported by these services
in the near future, others do not know if they will. They have several concerns
regarding the software providers service level. These concerns are mainly
technical and functional issues, service availability and payment models. There
are major changes compared to the traditional software that have implications
on how the software is developed and made available to the users. The existing
research addresses specific aspects and few studies give a broader view of the
implications of SaaS for anyone who develops and provides software, and also
for those who consumes it as an end user. What are the real needs of the
Portuguese market? What fears and what is being done to mitigate them? Where
should we focus our attention related to the SaaS offering in order to create
more value? Thus, to analyze these questions four exploratory case studiesare
used to assess the possible implications of SaaS on software developers or
software providers based in Portugal and also on end-users. This article
appears in the context of a realistic and deep research that includes the
involvement of managers, leaders and decision makers of Portuguese companies,
to realize what actually constitutes a problem in SaaS and what effectively
companies would like to have available in this offer. The results of this study
reveal that SaaS effectively constitutes a very interesting and solid solution
for the development of Portuguese companies, however there is a lack for
greater efforts particularly in terms of customization for each customer
(tenant) and integration with the back-end on-premise applications.
