I had the privilege of serving as the chairman and ‘master-of-ceremonies’ at this week’s CloudFutures conference for ISVs migrating to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in San Jose, CA.

The event succeeded in drawing over one-hundred attendees seeking to better understand the complexities associated with leveraging the rapidly growing array of cloud computing services to develop and deliver SaaS solutions.

While this number may not seem significant, it was exactly the scale of event that I expected given the time of year and proliferation of cloud-oriented conferences. It was also an ideal size to delve into many of the thorny issues surrounding SaaS and allow the attendees to freely interact with the speakers, as well as one another.

In many ways the event resembled the SoftLetter SaaS University sessions where I’ve served as a keynote speaker and sponsor. While I’m still a big supporter of those sessions, I was happy to assist the organizers of this conference because they were filling a void in the calendar while SaaS U was on hiatus, with its next session scheduled in Dallas at the end of January.

The CloudFutures agenda featured a diverse group of industry pundits and practicioners regarding SaaS/cloud computing market trends; development and delivery best practices;  packaging and pricing techniques; storage opportunities and security challenges; and compliance and other legal concerns.

In addition to focusing on key ISV/SaaS vendor operational issues, I also recruited Doug Harr, the CIO of Ingres, and Allan Leinwand of Panorama Capital to provide the buyer and investor perspectives respectively.

The result was a packed agenda which gave the attendees a 360 degree view of the good, bad and ugly of using cloud computing resources to develop and deliver SaaS solutions.

The bottomline derived from two days of talks is that today’s cloud computing services are too embryonic and possess too many uncertainties to base an entire SaaS business upon at this time.

However, cloud computing also represents an invaluable resource to develop and test SaaS services and strategies quickly and economically.

The rapid technological evolution of the ‘cloud’ and gradual resolution of many of the business issues surrounding cloud computing will make it a more viable alternative for ongoing operations within the next two years, and a critical component of SaaS success going forward.

cloud computing CloudFutures SaaS SaaS University SoftLetter Software-as-a-Service