As technology evolves, more companies are looking for easier ways to manage their IT infrastructure and, in turn, their Quality Management System (QMS).  First came the client-server (thick client); then came the Web client(thin client); and now Software as a Service (SaaS) (supermodel thin client).  With the first two, the key component was the hardware.  It was always known that if you wanted software, you had to put it on a box, and someone had to maintain that box.  In this new technological era, IT is tired of maintaining your hardware;  they are looking for ways to deploy the QMS in the "cloud" - the hosted realm where server farms enable virtual operating environments to "float" and draw what bandwidth is needed to make the software work. 

With all the industry abuzz about Software as a Service (SaaS), many players are entering the market, throwing their hat in the SaaS ring. Traditionally, we know that SaaS resides in a multi-tenant capacity. The reasons behind this have been twofold:

In the evolution of Quality, Compliance and EHS systems, we've seen several incarnations of software platforms over the years.  In the "good old days"  it was client-server models.  Before that, it was word of mouth, spreadsheets, and "folklore".  Then came along the Web (thank you Mr. Gore).  With the advent of the Web, more and more systems became accessible on a different level.  Thin clients pushed data out to the far reaches of the world, or at least as far as your Ethernet cable would let you go.