I hope everyone realizes that Forrester polled only IT managers. Consider just these 2 reasons why IT managers may not represent the "enterprise view" toward SaaS, if indeed there is one collective view:

1. At large organizations, the IT department may not even know about SaaS subscriptions that are contracted by line-of-business heads. At Saugatuck, we poll both user and IT heads, and have found that IT heads often underestimate the number of SaaS solutions in their own enterprises. User heads at times engage with SaaS providers without notifying their IT departments, partly because their motivation to do SaaS has been long-standing frustration with IT's responsiveness and service levels.

2. Established relationships with large IT product vendors, whose interests run counter to those of SaaS providers, bias IT departments to the IT product vendors' points of view and FUD-laced sales tactics. SaaS is really primarily a business solution that disintermediates the IT department, shifting workloads to the cloud. If IT is concerned about SaaS -- and Cloud Computing, as well -- it may be because more SaaS means smaller, more management-oriented IT. Defending the IT department's technical turf by resisting the considerable business benefits of SaaS is a disfunctional (but completely understandable) response to this burgeoning phenomenon.

On the other hand, at Saugatuck we have polled both user and IT heads regarding their levels of satisfaction with the SaaS solutions they have been using. 84% of user and IT heads were either satisfied or highly satisfied with their SaaS experiences, and only 2.3% were at all dissatisfied.

You can read more about the SaaS satisfaction survey responses, including satisfaction with 15 components of the SaaS experience (from solution functionality to responsiveness to change requests) at our website www.saugatech.com. Sign up for free Research Alerts, if you'd like to receive regular insights from Saugatuck.

I couldn't agree more with Mike's comments. As a mid-sized American IT organization of a large global enterprise, we are constantly trying to find ways to provide better and cheaper services to our customers. SaaS is one of the strategic directions that we are embracing to allow us to fill their needs. As Mike has pointed out, IT departments seldom are aware of the level of SaaS that is already being used within organizations. We see this as an opportunity to rein in these "rougue" applications ensuring that the needs of our customers are met, security is mantained, and, at least in our case, be the white knights that are fending off the draconian "corporate IT police" and enabling them to concentrate on their mission: make money.

The common theme so far in the comments section is “mis-alignment”. The lack of alignment between the business/operational units and the IT group responsible for supporting them is fairly typical in many dis-functioning organizations today. Some look at it as though the Ops dog is wagging the IT tail (or the IT tail is trying to wag the Ops dog)… rather than looking at what is best for the dog rather than “who” is wagging “what”… what is really needed is a clearly aligned vision that is supported by effective governance – easier said than done, I know…