Yes, my first two posts to this new Computerworld blog were critical of software as a service. After all, arguing that SaaS is hurting today's IT economy and going to cause IT integration problms in companies for years, maybe decades, are not ringing endorsements of cloud computing from a so-called advocate.

That's what I am, though, a SaaS advocate. But I am not a cheerleader.

SaaS is a fantastic option today for companies whose business units need IT tools in a hurry, but whose IT shops can't or won't do the work. Like outsourcers, SaaS providers can be good allies to CIOs.

But mostly, SaaS is what I crave as an end user. I am beyond bored with managing my own operating systems, network software and application portfolio for my Windows and Mac machines. (I gave up on my Linux box about a year ago. Too much trouble for too little ROI.) What I want, what I think most reasonably sophisticated computer users would prefer, is a robust, secure, reliable, diverse, customizable, high-performance and fairly-priced array of SaaS options.

I have more than a few demented and geeky friends who can't wait for a new distribution of Linux to arrive so they can test their favorite open source packages on the release. Nothing pleases them more than sharing hacks and shortcuts on Ars Technica and Slashdot or reporting kernel bugs to Buqzilla.

Thankfully, the vast majority of computer users are unlike those guys. (And all the ones I know are men; most women are too sensible.) Like me, working people think of their computers and the software they run as tools. Nothing more. So when it's time to upgrade an operating system or download a new application, we consider it a burden and a waste of our time. If only a skilled person would do it for us.

Then in walks SaaS, albeit tripping and stumbling, to save the day.

The SaaS model promises to eliminate the software maintenance aspect of our lives. But that cloud computing model and today's SaaS reality are just that, a model versus the real thing.

Still, the potential for SaaS is so great for both individual users and businesses, it needs critically-minded advocates to critique, cajole and commend SaaS providers as they slog their way down a long road to a new and ultimately better way to compute. I hope to become one of the voices of sanity along that path.