[Providence-based OpenBox director of technology and development MICHAEL] SALINGER: Software as a service gives companies the ability to worry about their business practices rather than their IT needs for a specific application. It allows companies that are experts in a specific technology or specific application, like CRM, to manage that application. A company can focus on their business needs for CRM without having to focus on the technical needs of CRM.

SALINGER: There are companies resisting the model, but it is growing and gaining acceptance in the industry, and it’s becoming one of the new paradigms for managing software.