Where’s the SaaS App Market Headed?

After spending a day at Dreamforce it is clear that the SaaS app market, as well as associated salesforce.com AppExchange eco-system, is growing like gang busters. The top sponsorship slot for Dreamforce this year was Platinum for a whopping $250,000. Next year they’ll have two even more expensive slots: Diamond and Titantium. Imagine what those will go for.

Here are a few SaaS app trends I see:

• More connectors and off-the-shelf integration between SaaS products (who’s going to win the generic app marketplace e.g. a marketplace that isn’t the Google Apps Marketplace and isn’t the salesforce.com AppExchange marketplace?)
• Integration and migration of legacy data continues to be a big challenge (garbage in, garbage out, regardless of industry)
• Ease of use continues to be a major focus (design for the novice, customize for the pro)
• Pricing and complexity of contracts is starting to decrease, making things better for the customer

All in all, the SaaS market continues to grow fast and I’m very bullish about it. We’re only scratching the surface of SaaS apps changing how businesses operate.