Business analysts and technology pundits have been kicking the software as a service ball back and forth from the midfield to the goal box for many years, taking their shots from a variety of angles. Much like comparing post-game strategies, recent articles indicate that perceptions of winning with SaaS depend on how many goals were scored.

ComputerPartner’s The truth about software as a service starts with a reaction to the spaced-out marketing statement that SaaS will eliminate both the corporate datacenter and CIO as an across the board replacement for all ERP applications. Back on earth, the focus returns to real-world benefits such as: “enabling enterprises' individual processes while delivering them through a standard but highly configurable code base”.

Compterworld’s Software as a Service: Time for the IT Industry to Take Notice points out that a survey of CIOs revealed that: “those who planned to use some form of software as a service over the next 12 months grew from 38% in autumn of 2005 to 61% a year later.”

CRN.com’s Top 25 Tech Breakthroughs Of All Time lists SaaS as a force that: “legacy on-premise software players—from IBM to Oracle to Microsoft—are scrambling to keep up with”.

Even The Wall Street Journal weighs in with Web-Based Services Take Hold.

And last but not least, eWeek’s 10 Things They Believe in Silicon Valley but Nowhere Else overplays the concept of “SaaS dominates all” due to offsides “sermons” from overexcited executives.

Although some say SaaS plays best in the middle market, we know more than 1,000 organizations of all sizes that have been winning the talent game using software as a service, scoring on improved efficiency, cost reduction, and overall ROI. In fact, Taleo counts a third of the Fortune 100 as customers.