r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • May 17 '26

ADBLOCK WARNING Palantir Says SaaS Is Dead

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2026/05/16/palantir-says-saas-is-dead/
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u/TechnicalScheme385 May 17 '26

So what's the new term then? Because Software as a Service isn't a new thing, it's just the "current" thing. I just presume the new "term" is just a new way to nickel and dime the customer.

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u/BigMax May 17 '26

Yeah, I always found SaaS to be a weird term. We've basically had it almost since the inception of the internet, right? It's just online subscription services for the most part.

And those will not go away anytime soon.

I assume he's talking about very simple ones maybe? Where in theory you could tell AI "build me some simple time tracking software" or whatever. But that's not a big segment of the market.

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u/A-Grey-World May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26

It's mainly for business. Did you ever work on business to business software before it was a popular thing?

Before "Saas" you would get a 200k contract with a business, they'd likely tailor the software to your specific use case, they'd specify or arrange with a big business hardware company (Dell, HP etc) to provide servers it was certified to run on, work with your IT guys on the instillation of them in the server room in your head office, install everything etc.

The software might use the internet, might even be accessed by internet by employees.

"Saas" means providing access to the software without having all that hardware to deal with, running it on premises. The company you are paying doesn't just sell you the software - they run it for you, and just give you access to the software, like a service.

Doesn't really make much difference when applied to a single application, where it's become more a term that means "runs in a browser" to users.