Two cases in point: Brown University and the City of Sanibel, Fla. are each in the midst of SaaS ERP projects that are slated to improve their operations, simplify their reporting functions and streamline and replace tired, old work processes that date back several decades.

"Because we were still back in the mainframe code days, we didn't have a lot of needed functionality," says Michael Pickett, the CIO at .

For years, the school has been running a hodge-podge of individual homebuilt and proprietary applications for payroll, human resources, purchasing, budgeting and other functions--all on a 25-year-old IBM mainframe. "Our reporting was rudimentary. There wasn't a lot built in, no document management. We were using very ancient tools to try to manage a modern university."

When the economic downturn hit, it gave university officials even more of an incentive to make needed changes. Suddenly, they didn't have the staff resources they needed to manage that existing, outdated infrastructure, Pickett says. "That was a driving force."

The idea of SaaS ERP came up in discussions with the school's Board of Trustees. Two board members worked at companies that were using SaaS ERP from vendor ., Pickett says.