How is SaaS viewed by the CIO/CTO?

In the Gulf/ME SaaS still has not set foot mainly for Security Issues and Confidentiality of data.

I agree that Contact Call Centers are picking up in the US and beginning to slowly be accepted some large firms in the Gulf/ME mainly in the telecom industry.

I for example in a recent enagement was the IT Director for a company that leased cars and provided Credit Facilites. The COO of the Financing Company was reluctant to outsource the Contact Call Center for security Issues, hence an army of Call Reps had to be hired inhouse.

Again this is just an example, but on the flip side, I also see CEO's that would rather host there email services in the US than with their IT department's exchange server.
They dont trust their IT Staff.

here we have two scenraios on CEO who does not wish to host Customer Data offsite vs a CEO who doesnt trust his IT staff that are managing the exchange servers for the Emails.

As an IT professional I am aware of the all the confidentiality agreements that SaaS providers have to sign with Organizations, but somehow the perception of data security to the Owners/Management still plays an important part especially in the Gulf Countries

Could "home land security' be a contributing factor to the perception perceived by the Owners in the Gulf/ME? Who knows!

With regards to your question of IT Professionals accepting and activily seeking SaaS, I would say that yes to IT Professionals accepting SaaS it they dont have another agenda on their minds, but at the end of the day, the End Users need to buy in to the idea. Even if they do this is strategic decision and as I mentioned the CEO's and Owners are the final decision makers.
What makes it eve more difficult for CIOs to option the SaaS is the fact that many CIOs report to CFOs., CFOs, have a tendency to be very conservative.

The irony of this is CFO's wish to control costs, so what better solution than to utilize SaaS; CFOs also however are very critical when it comes to data leakages so they they to avoid Services as SaaS. Again it all depends on the extent of data that will be shared in a contact call center application.

In summary, If the CIO can convince the decision makers the primary owners then this is a start. This can be done via an awareness program on SaaS, Cloud computing, google apps, etc.

If a sound business case is presented, highlighting in detail the data what would be shared(outsource) vs risks of sharing this data in a SaaS environment then any rational decision making person can compare pros n cons of each and decide.

Personally if i were to utlize the SaaS my first task would be a due diligence on the SaaS provider, his track record on security protection. I would demand to see a his Full Security policy on Firewalls, routers, and what measures are in place for contingency and backup procedures.

To further add a bit of humor on this topic, one company in the gulf wanted to Outsource benefits from SaaS, but were worried about the confidentiality of their data. So they decided to create a new IT Company to host all there services.But they end up paying for all the setup. Hoping eventually to offer thier SaaS to other clients.
now they can boast that they utilzie SaaS.