"Innovation in the software industry is on the upswing, with Software as a Service (SaaS) being a key driver."

So begins the 2008 Enterprise Software Customer Survey by McKinsey & Company and Sandhill Group.

The survey shows SaaS "becoming mainstream," with 74% of enterprise customers "favorably disposed to adopting SaaS platforms."

Who gets that business? "A battleground is emerging between traditional mega-vendors and the larger SaaS incumbents with customers almost evenly divided between the two in their preferred choice for SaaS platform provider."

Software spending is expected to increase to 35% of overall enterprise IT spending by 2010.

You can read the survey here.

Nick Carr drills down on the cloud/platform aspect, including what McKinsey calls the Platform Wars.

Savio Rodrigues highlights statistics on decision-making: "Overall, control of software decisions split 83% / 17% between centrally controlled vs. business unit controlled. This split grows as the company size increases. For example, it's down to 67% / 33% in companies with > 25,000 employees."