In the earliest stages of SaaS, flexibility posed a major obstacle to companies accustomed to programs designed specifically for their needs. However, as SaaS applications become more customizable and vendors lowered prices, companies are willing to sacrifice completely flexibility due to all the other benefits of SaaS, according to Internet Evolution.

Even with improvements in customization, SaaS applications are not as flexible as previous programs. The popularity of companies like Salesforce.com, however, shows that organizations have learned ways to alter their operations around the strengths of quality SaaS applications.

"Traditional customization has been a black hole for most organizations which has too often failed to achieve its business objectives. SaaS solutions are becoming increasingly flexible. While they will never be as customizable as legacy applications, a growing number of organizations are willing to sacrifice infinite customization for reasonable configuration capabilities," Jeffrey Kaplan, an analyst for ThinkStrategies, told the news provider.

Companies planning the move to SaaS must account for a slight loss of some flexibility, though. Info World recently reported that the biggest reason companies fail with SaaS and other forms of cloud computing is that do not plan for their move properly.