The middle-of-the-road results may not temper the use of external IT services (just seven percent of respondents said they planned to decrease their use of outsourcing). But it could make more attractive. Nearly three quarters of respondents said they are considering cloud computing as an outsourcing option; 13 percent are working with existing outsourcing vendors to move to cloud-based services, and 10 percent are replacing existing outsourcing services with new vendors who can tap the cloud.

Whether cloud-enabled providers will address the biggest perceived outsourcing risks according to the survey (i.e. poor service quality, data security/intellectual property protection, and loss of internal knowledge-remains to be seen. Customers will likely have the same concerns with cloud options.

in CIO's IT Organization Drilldown.