Much has been written on the advantages of delivering software as a service (SaaS). In this "hosted" or "on-demand" model, vendors ship no software to the customer and provide a fully hosted web-based solution accessible over the Internet. Customers benefit from reduced costs and complexity in that no hardware needs to be purchased and no software installation is required.

This paper explores how  Appliance-based Software Delivery (AbSD) provides a better alternative to both Software and Software as a Service (SaaS).