Gartner: are we hitting the limits on enterprise cloud proliferation?

Chris Maxcer just relayed this interesting revelation from the Gartner SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit taking place in London this week: that even Software as a Service may have its limits within enterprise settings.

Gartner's David Cearley: Beware of shelfware also moving to the cloud

"Gartner analysts are sharing best practices for SaaS, and Gartner reports: SaaS will have a role in the future of IT, but not the dominant future that was first thought. Organizations should carefully assess their software needs in light of the current promises delivered on by SaaS."

For example, Gartner analyst David Cearley says there is actually shelfware appearing in the enterprise cloud world. So, bad habits from the enterprise software world, such as paying a lot of continuing licensing fees for shelfware, may be transferring to the cloud world.

Gartner says that SaaS represented 3.4% of total enterprise spending, slightly up from 2008 at 2.8%. Most spending is going to content, collaboration, and communication and the customer relationship management markets.

Is it likely, then, (to put it in Gartnerspeak) that SaaS/cloud is now descending off the peak of the hype curve down to the trough of disillusionment?

For companies with extensive IT operations, it's going to be some time before they consider repositioning these assets as off-site services provided by outside parties. What is of tremendous interest, however, are more secure and controllable internal clouds.

(Photo Credit: Gartner, Inc.)