Web analytics may be well suited for cloud, but Boris Evelson, an analyst at Forrester, said that tdoesn't apply to business intelligence (BI) applications. One problem is BI is not really well defined and is subject to a lot of customization, which is not something the cloud-based services are well suited for, he said.

"BI is very different for every client; it's very personalized," Evelson said. Business also want the ability to makes frequent changes, something that cloud-based BI apps don't necessarily allow.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's BI and Analytics Topic Center.