Users or Suppliers to Hamper the Cloud and SaaS?

I have been doing some comment recently on Cloud Computing and SaaS and where it will and will not take off. The major question in my mind is whether the take up of cloud computing is going to be restricted by customers not willing to take up services or software vendors not willing to change their business models to at least encapsulate a hosted offering.

Their are a lot of factors to consider for a vendor when creating a hosted model, most namely:-

• Can the software be hosted easily with its current code?
• Would we do this directly or through partners?
• Is there a call for this?
• How will my profit margins and sale projections change?

Their is also the "greyer" factors to consider when looking at this and to whether the channel situated below the software company can actually handle selling a hosted offering and whether introducing it would require new suppliers into that channel or whether current partners can adapt and take on this as an extra route to market.

In my opinion, the predicted surge of cloud computing will depend on whether these factors have been considered in detail prior to this year. There is a long road to be driven before launching a SaaS / Cloud / Hosted solution and the strategy will have to be taken on long before a delivery can be realised.