Whilst there are obvious reasons for using locally hosted SAAS (Software As A Service) such as local support and reduced latency (a contributor to the time taken for a web page to load/update), there are also legal and financial issues to consider. A couple of articles from earlier in the year on ZDNet (The pitfalls of offshore cloud - Business - News) and Computerworld (Legal risks of hosting data offshore highlighted - security, risks, macquarie telecom, compliance, cloud - Computerworld) discuss some of the issues involved and are certainly worth reading if you're considering an offshore service.