Service Provider

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What Does Service Provider Mean?

A service provider is a vendor that provides IT solutions and/or services to end users and organizations. This broad term incorporates all IT businesses that provide products and solutions through services that are on-demand, pay per use or a hybrid delivery model.

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Techopedia Explains Service Provider

A service provider’s delivery model generally differs from conventional IT product manufacturers or developers. Typically, a service provider does not require purchase of an IT product by a user or organization. Rather, a service provider builds, operates and manages these IT products, which are bundled and delivered as a service/solution. In turn, a customer accesses this type of solution from a service provider via several different sourcing models, such as a monthly or annual subscription fee.

Examples of service providers include:

  • Hosting service provider
  • Cloud service provider
  • Storage service provider
  • Software as a Service (SaaS) provider
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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.