I've read scuttlebutt about M$ moving Windows to a SaaS model, but I fail to
understand how this could possibly work.

Leaving aside what I personally think of the whole Software as a Service model,
I can understand, after a fashion, why it might be appealing for a development
team to be able to issue mass updates to subscribers, rather than waiting for
people to upgrade and continuing to offer backwards support and compatibility
for legacy versions.

And the idea of having a few.. hundred... million customers paying you $20 a
month forever sure must seem like a Good Idea to the executives of companies
that already have more money than Croesus.

That said: I personally believe that it would stifle innovation, since an
independent developer couldn't test a program on their own machine, but would be
forced to run it in a sandbox VM.

This is pretty much the dilemma I'm having with iOS apps at the moment.  I
despise what Apple has done to iTunes, and there are features that I would love
to implement into a music player, but unless I jailbreak my iPod, I can't write
a program solely for my own, personal edification, and use it.  In order to get
the app on my iPod, as I understand it, I would have to have it digitally
signed, for which I would have to pay, and have the app reviewed by Apple (which
requires showing them the code -- yeah... No). Or have an Enterprise Developer
license which costs an insane amount of money.

In reality, I understand that there are probably music players already on the
app store that do most, if not all, of the things I want to do; however, sifting
through them is a pain, and I could potentially learn something by doing it
myself.

But I digress.

As I aspire to, one day, program for a living -- A topic not for discussion on a
public forum -- I am interested in the various development and marketing models
used in the industry, and often find myself at odds with various philosophies,
but I try to remain open minded.

Anybody else have thoughts on the SaaS model?

Regards,
A.D.B.

P.S. If anyone knows of a good music player for the iOS that sports an
attractive interface and allows you to construct and save ad-hoc playlists on
the fly (e.g. building a temporary playlist while playing the songs on it.) I
would appreciate suggestions.

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