Gary Chen, senior analyst at the Yankee Group, points out that off-site storage of key financial data is a touchy area for many companies. "The other factor is user comfort with outsourcing that kind of data. With customer relationship management data the comfort level has gone up considerably, but for core financial data it isn't there right now." He expects that this can and will change over time but cautions that for now "the issue that still remains to be solved is how to scale a highly customized application like ERP in a SaaS model."
Brad Kenney is the former Technology Editor of IndustryWeek and now serves as director of the mobile/social platforms practice at R/GA, a global marketing/advertising firm in New York City.