Gartner published two press releases this month that speak to both the acceleration of software as a service (SaaS) application adoption and the challenges faced by enterprise IT. We’ve all seen (and experienced) the phenomenal growth of companies like salesforce.com and so the prediction that Worldwide Cloud Services Market to Surpass $68 Billion in 2010 wasn’t a big surprise. It was a more cautious Gartner announcement which noted “many of the bad practices that occurred in the on-premises world are now moving their way into SaaS,” that caught my attention.

Gartner Says Organizations Need to Re-Evaluate the Rationale for SaaS. The press release concludes that, “SaaS will likely penetrate every company at one level or another,” and outlines four steps to help enterprise IT organizations get the most from their cloud services investments:

1. Determine Value
2. Develop Governance
3. Evaluate Vendors
4. Develop an Integration Road Map

It’s great to see the conversation shifting from objections to the SaaS model and towards methodologies to help both line of business and IT organizations adopt the right strategy. Of course it’s also great to see cloud integration recognized as critical to maximizing your return on cloud (dare I say ROC?).

But while the tone of the SaaS application adoption conversation has evolved, according to recent research from R “Ray” Wang at Altimeter Group, major divisions between line of business and IT persist. Ray’s post, “SaaS Decision Making is Firmly in the Hands of the Business Buyer” is excellent if you want to learn more about SaaS adoption trends and the shift in purchasing power that has occurred. The post highlights the need for greater business and IT collaboration and he provides 10 SaaS application recommendations to “next generation CIO’s, technology leaders, business leaders, and line of business execs” to help them develop a holistic strategy. Once again, the importance of cloud integration is recognized.

Ray’s advice is to “choose the right integration strategy for the right time.”