Thus, instead of selling software licenses, software vendors can rent software as a service to customers.
Salesforce.com allows businesses to rent software and use it online rather than buy software packages that require installation.
The service will also include an online store where people can offer or rent software for use in the Hewlett-Packard public cloud.
USINTERNETWORKING INC., Annapolis, Md., which rents software through the Internet, has agreed with the AT&T Corp., New York, to market business services together to reach more customers.
If you were paying £200 to £500 a month just to rent software, you'd probably have a different view of the hardware costs.
Every so often, when a software supplier upgrades, they have to start from scratch.With Salesforce.com's service, by contrast, companies rent software rather than buy it for $65 per user per month.
The deal is Microsoft's biggest bet yet that the traditional software business is shifting quickly to cloud computing, a model in which customers rent software and other services delivered over the internet.
The IPO was ten times oversubscribed, thanks to buoyant retail demand.Britain's Cable & Wireless announced an alliance with Microsoft to create an applications-service provider, renting software to small businesses over the Internet.
"They shouldn't even own them; in fact, they shouldn't even rent them; what they should do is rent a seat on one".In IT, the equivalent of renting a seat on an aircraft is to rent software as a service from specialised firms called "application service providers", or ASPs.
Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google — whose self-driving technology may someday make taxi drivers unnecessary — said that the plunging cost of information technology "has virtually eliminated the fixed cost of entering a business". Companies can rent software and computing power over the internet.
